

















































































































MY NEW HOME 


IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN, 


Aqd Otl^ef Aale^. 


-: 0 :- 


/ 


BY CHARLES W. JAY, 


-: 0 :- 


TRENTON, N. J. : 

Printed by W. S. and E. W. Sharp, 23 East State Street. 


I 







40382 


Entered according to act of Congress (before Congressional virtue had festered 
into Credit Mobilier villainy and back pay theft,) in the year 1874, by 
CHARLES W. JAY, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress,, at Washington, 


DEDICATED. 


Fikst — To Charles V. Mead, who, in the day of direst necessity 
came voluntarily to my relief, and positively refused all recompense,, 
when, at a more fortunate period, I had the ability to evidence my 
honesty and gratitude. 

Second — To the public, from whom I never received or deserved 
favors. 

Third — To myself, as an egotist who attempted fame without sta- 
bility of character, and succeeded only in achieving a questionable 
notoriety. 


t 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

Biographical 9 

Prefatory 12 

My New Home in Northern Michigan 15 

How the “Old Settler” Settled My Potato Bugs 56 

The First Death in Our Little Sunday School 62 

Darwinism Vindicated and Confirmed 69 

A Tale of the Wars of Pontiac 74 

My First Hunt in My New Home 102 

My Maple Ill 

Another Interesting Interview with the “Old Settler” 115 

The Vision 127 

Jane Jerusha Skeggs 128 

A Two Dollar Visit from the “ Old Settler” 130 

The Deserted Cabin, A Tale of Northern Michigan 135 

I Meet My First “Ingin” 144 

The Spectre of the Hemlock Gorge 150 

My Mother 162 

The “Old Settler” Goes to Church in Full Dress 163 

To My Little Sparrow 176 

My Angel 177 

To the Reader 178 


BIOGRAPHICAL. 


T HE average reader of those kind of books that are mainly 
founded on the personality of the writer, are apt to be 
curiously inclined to know something of the private history 
of the one who thus ventures publicly before them as a 
claimant to their favorable consideration. There is generally 
a feeling of sympathy with such reader toward such author, 
which strengthens with the progress of perusal, until it 
ripens into the desire of a more minute knowledge of the 
outer and inner life of him who has so interested them. 

Knowing that this little book, the child of my later years, 
will be kindly received and welcomed by a large number of 
men, and a far greater number of women — the latter always 
permitting the flood of sympathy, in which eddies the worth- 
less driftwood of “ sentiment,” to overflow the shallower 
depths of the brain — I proceed at once to unlock myself to 
all such as may be under the suggestions of curiosity, or 
the promptings of interest, for a glance or a stare at the 
“ elephant,” as he swings his inky trunk through the coming 
pages. 

Like all truly great and eminent men — at least in this 
our own country — I was born "of poor but respectable 
parents.” My father was a shoemaker, and waxed poorer 
and poorer with the yearly increase of his family, until he 
could hardly make both ends meet. His sole means of 
support was his trade, at which he hammered away day 
and night, in order to get the upper hand of the hard 
necessity that tacks’d all his energies. At last, by unre- 
lieved confinement, he was assailed by a stitch in the side, 


10 


BIOGRAPHICAL. 


the thread of life parted asunder, and my worthy progenitor 
paid the only debt that he could not elude by the statute 
of limitations — the debt of Nature. 

My father’s semi-occasional treatment of myself affords 
a striking illustration of the law of cause and effect. The 
only positive recreation in which he indulged, was in treat- 
ing me to “ black-sfmp,” that he might stirrup my natu- 
rally sluggish temperament. And behold the result, after 
I arrived to man’s estate, the only real freehold I ever 
held or inherited ! Scarcely a month has passed, in all the 
years since, in which I have not found myself completely 
“ strapped ! ” 

At the age of ten years I commenced the battle of life, 
with feeble hands, and a rebellious heart. I became a 
(i bearer- off” in a brickyard, at four dollars per month, 
finding my own board ! The work was hard, very hard, 
and the memory of those long and bitter days, in which my 
little hands were never without great, painful blisters, and 
my young heart became hourly more calloused in its sensi- 
bilities, is not a picture to look upon with pleasure, or even 
with that indifference to past suffering, which time so hu- 
manely softens down in the recollection of those who have 
passed through deep and troubled waters. All through the 
long summer months, from dawn of day to the evening 
twilight of the same, did I carry the tempered clay in the 
moulds, bending down to deposit the green bricks upon the 
smooth floor of the yard, without rest or intermission, save 
a little half hour for a cold dinner, until back and heart 
were alike nearly broken, and the spirit of my young life 
drunken up with silent and unavailing sorrow. 

But here again comes in another illustration of the mys- 
terious law of cause and effect. From carrying bricks in 
moulds as a boy, I got to carrying bricks in my hat as a 


BIOGRAPHICAL. 


II 


man ! Truly is it written that we are wonderfully and 
frightfully made ! 

But I must discard this whining imbecility of mind at 
the dead past of my childhood, and push along over the 
sterner road that is tracked with the strife of mature 


years. 


(to be continued.) 


PREFATORY. 


T HIS is my first attempt at publication outside of the col- 
umns of a newspaper. Through a period of thirty years I 
have been connected with journalism in the city of Trenton, 
and have written more upon the ephemeral subjects of the 
hour than any other man in the State of New Jersey ; and 
without boasting, may be permitted to say that but very few 
other writers have penned so little worthy of preservation. 
I wrote as the humor happened to direct or necessity impelled. 
Careless of what I said, indifferent to public opinion, reck- 
less of the effect upon my personal interests, I “ went in ” on 
the Irish injunction of “ wherever you see a head, hit it.” 

The natural consequence, of course, reacted upon myself. 
Talent, misguided, may be in demand when the temporary 
passions of the people blind them to the amenities of contro- 
versy, or the whispered monitions of judgment ; but as the 
tumult passes, and reason returns, the champion of mere 
strife is weighed in a more carefully adjusted balance, and 
<( found wanting ” is labelled upon his merits. I know and 
feel all this, but it is a principle of moral law that the reck- 
less man learns wisdom when it is too late to be benefited 
thereby. Whether this law is relaxed in individual cases, is 
just now a conundrum in which I have special interest, and 
the solution cannot be very far distant. 

But to this book. I resolved upon it only a few weeks 
ago, and have written it without method or forethought, and 
with all the rapidity that I could draft into the service. In 
fact, it has been rather an effort of muscle than of mind, and 
a charitable judgment is invoked upon the result. Rude sir, 


PREFATORY. 


13 


or gentle madam, to be honestly blunt with you, the writer 
needed money, and as borrowing is “ played out,” in panic 
times, your servant adopted the only alternative that gave a 
faint promise of temporary relief. What little of pecuniary 
value remained to the subscriber in this world, went up in 
that interesting balloon, known as the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road. 

And therein rests the reason, explanatory of the fact of my 
charging so much more for this volume than it is really worth ! 
When one has been badly skinned by reposing confidence in 
others, it seems that he naturally takes a sort of melancholy 
satisfaction in getting even by skinning everybody else who 
can be inveigled within the reach of his clutches. That’s 
what’s the matter with your author. 

It is proper to state that a portion of my work in refer- 
ence to Northern Michigan was written at odd hours for 
Beecher’s Magazine, and is republished without revisal, and 
with all its imperfections as first hastily penned. Most 
of the other sketches were recently reeled off, and handed to 
the printer just as they dropped from the pen, without addi- 
tion or subtraction. I know they are very imperfect, far 
short of what a purchaser has the right to expect. But I’ve 
got your money, and what are you going to do about it ? 
The financial morals of the American Congress must be sus- 
tained by an enlightened and loyal constituency. That’s the 
kind of a man I am ! 

As I said before, this is my first effort in the story line of 
publication, and written under the spur of necessity. And 
if the two love tales herein unfolded seem maudlin to the 
ancient maiden or the wrinkled beau, please retrace your own 
earlier days of romance, and remember that we boys will be 
boys, and that the love foibles of youth are the most pardon- 
able in heaven and on earth, of all the weaknesses of our 


14 


PREFATORY. 


poor fallen nature. Spinster of an uncertain age; beaux 
rejuvenated by hair dye, and unhappy because December is 
not June, relax the frown of jealous envy, and take a philo- 
sophic view of the antics of us youth ! 

A few words more, and I disappear from my introductory 
audience. 

There are certain smart fools, who appreciate sound better 
than sense, who will be able to find a world of fault with 
these unpremeditated compositions. Before all such, I kneel 
in confession at the threshold. The writer of these pages 
never studied grammar an hour in his life, and at this 
moment does not know the scholastic distinction between 
a noun and a pronoun, a verb and an adverb, a participle 
and — and — that other feller of the parts of speech, whose 
name I have forgotten. And the beauty of it is that I don’t 
care the flip of a copper for all such deficiencies. 

“ What’s all the learning of your schools, 

Your Latin names for horns and stools ? 

If honest Nature made you fools, 

What’s all your grammar?” 

But I fear that this will be found too extensive a prelude to 
the careless and indifferent performance that is to follow. I 
only again exclaim, in the language of the illustrious Tweed, 
martyr to spasmodic municipal virtue, “ I’ve got your money , 
and ivhat are you going to do about it ?” 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


FTER an almost unbroken residence of fifty years, by 



1 jl birth and citizenship, in the State of New Jersey, on the 
evening of the 13th of November, 1871, I turned my face 
Westward to join my family in Northern Michigan, wife and 
children having preceded me by a few months. Perhaps 
there is no man, however stolid by nature, or hardened by 
habit, who can release the ties of a lifetime, and bid adieu to 
scenes endeared by associations running back to the earliest 
recollections of childhood, without at least a momentary sad- 
ness shrouding all his thoughts, and recalling his moral 
outlawry back to the comparative purity of earlier years. Not 
being a preceptible exception to this natural law of emotion, 
I admit, without moral reservation or secreted intent of 
deception, that I turned my back upon the city of my birth 
and took up the long journey before me, with not exactly 
that alacrity of feeling that is popularly supposed to animate 
the bridegroom on his way to a marriage altar, or his after 
trip for a Chicago divorce. As the train lumbered over the 
Old Delaware Bridge at the legal speed of three miles an 
hour, I found that my heart was in rebellion., at my self- 
expatriation, and that a perceptible trifle of unwonted moisture 
had welled up from some long-neglected spring away down 
in the darkened recesses of memory. 

But this effervescent weakness was not of long duration. 
Sorrows of this nature are like those of childhood, touching 
but brief ; the sun soon absorbs the April shower. It has 


16 


MY XEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


been divinely and wisely ordered that pangs of feeling are 
not chronic ; 'they touch sharply and depart swiftly ; there 
would be small happiness in the world else. 

At midnight the train that bore the undersigned and his 
fortunes moved slowly out from the depot of the Pennsylvania 
Central, just over the Market street Schuylkill bridge, at 
Philadelphia, and pushed on into the darkness upon its 
mission. 

But fate seemed averse to my “ new departure/ 7 and mani- 
fested her displeasure at my rebellion throughout the journey. 
While the glare of the city lights was still visible from the 
car windows, the iron horse balked, and notwithstanding the 
fireman “ hauled him over the coals/ 7 he only continued to 
snort at intervals for a full hour before he could be goaded to 
his ordinary speed. 

Lager is a great somnificator, and the undersigned soon 
faded away gently into the arms of sleep. 

“ Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care” 

is one of the few ancient institutions that has not gone out of 
fashion, and still maintains its original connection with its 
younger brother, Death, in the counterfeit business. Sleep 
pretends to be death, and awakes in this world. Death fools 
annihilation by leaping from the grave into the indescribable 
glory of eternal life. If this is a delusion, in God 7 s name 
hold on to it ! It never hurt anybody yet. 

Early dawn found us entering the gorges of the Alleghe- 
nies. A furious storm howled through the desert solitude, 
and the lofty tree tops swayed to and fro, as if seeking relief 
from agony. On our right the beautiful but erratic Juniata 
wound its way towards the still more lovely Susquehanna ; 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


17 


and just here memory awoke as from a long protracted sleep, 
and unrolled one of her strangest pages for my perusal. 

Nearly thirty-five years ago, ere I had arrived at the estate 
of a voting citizen of this great and greatly humbugged 
republic, I passed along this very spot, on the bosom of this 
very river, looking exactly as it does now, unchanged by time 
and its innovations. I was then on my way to Ohio, at that 
day a frontier State, with the great West beyond almost un- 
known, and a Pacific Railroad undreamed of, save in the 
despotic vagaries of Tom Benton. I had six silver half- 
dollars in my pocket, with two dollars’ worth of wardrobe 
secured in a shilling handkerchief, and my passage paid to 
Cincinnati. A strong heart and willing hands were con- 
sidered a good outfit for a boy-man in those days. It is 
different now. 

The Juniata at that time was made tributary to the needs 
of internal commerce by what was called “ slack water naviga- 
tion.” Dams were constructed across the river at intervals, 
by which its waters w T ere widened out into ponds. From the 
canal our boat would be guided into these ponds, dragged 
along for miles, then slipped on to trucks that ran into the 
water from the railroad track, railroaded other miles, then 
again slid into the canal, then into the river, and so alternat- 
ing to the end. 

It seems strange to look back and see how we were carried 
over the highest ridges of the mountains. At the top of 
the ridges were powerful stationary engines. When our boat 
on the railroad trucks would reach the base of these steep 
elevations, a huge cable would be made fast to the head 
of the train, and the stationary engine would draw us 
up the dangerous steep. When we reached the short level of 
the top, the cable would be attached to the rear, and we 
would be let down on the other side by a like process. ’Taint 


18 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


so now ! We go over and under, thread valleys and wind 
precipices, pass innumerable “ dead lines ” within an inch of 
eternal smash, and the traveller, unless he chances to look 
from his window, cannot tell if it be prairie or mountain he 
is crossing. 

I remember one sight in that early trip over the mountains 
that fastened my attention so that it will be available unto 
death. The board shanties that enclosed these stationary 
engines just referred to, were fairly “ papered” with the 
skins of huge rattlesnakes, tacked thereto by the attendants, 
who had amused their idle hours by capturing these inter- 
esting specimens of natural history. The exhibition fairly 
made my flesh creep, snakelike, then, and the memory of it 
now is not exactly a soothing balm to nervous inquietude. 

As we descended the western slope of the mountain, fate 
renewed her attempts to thwart my purpose of leaving New 
Jersey to mourn my permanent removal from her territory. 
Our delay at Philadelphia had given an emigrant train the 
“ right of way,” and as this train had a trifle less than four- 
teen thousand Dutchmen on board, bound for Wisconsin and 
Minnesota, its headway was retarded beyond the usual dila- 
tory gait of such lines, as governed by the u time table.” 
One hundred and fifty miles east of Pittsburg we overtook 
said emigrant line, and were compelled to halt a full half 
hour to enable it to get ahead of the chances for a collision. 
A short run brought us again in view of our unwelcome con- 
sort, and another impatient halt was the result. And so we 
continued until we reached the doomed (I came near writing 

it cl ) city of furnaces, fire, and bituminous brimstone, 

fully six hours behind time. 

At 4 o’clock P. M., we started up the banks of the Alle- 
gheny river, crossed the Ohio about dusk, and found our- 
selves on a straight road running through a country of an 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 19 

•almost unbroken level. A furious storm was raging, the 
rain came clown in sweeping floods, and the winds raged 
with an incessant fury that found few precedents within our 
memory. About midnight, when everybody on board who 
bad a good conscience was asleep, or should have been, fate 
made another desperate effort to stay my flight from the 
home and associations of a long life, and the despairing citi- 
zens of a sovereign and independent State, Tom Scott, and 
the fused monopolies of Camden and Amboy, and Pennsyl- 
vania Central included. She uncoupled the palace car in 
which I reposed in slumbering innocence, from the rest of 
the train, and the engineer being doubtless asleep, did not 
bear the parting of the bell-rope, and the speed of thirty-five 
miles an hour continued unchecked, leaving us standing upon 
the track with the hurricane howling for admission at every 
window ! In about thirty minutes the engineer discovered 
bis loss, and returned to repair damages. All hope of mak- 
ing up lost time before reaching Chicago was now abandoned, 
and the locomotive settled down to a less alarming speed. 

We reached the charred ruins of the City of Divorces 
about noon the next day. As the Northwestern line through 
Wisconsin had left without waiting for our connection, we 
had five hours to stay for the evening train. I found it 
impossible to realize that the still smoking mounds through 
which I wandered were the debris of what, a few days before, 
was one of the largest and most enterprising and wealthy 
-cities in the world. In an unbroken view of. miles, scarce a 
wall was left standing. The long lines of former streets 
•could only be plainly traced by the almost unscorched Nich- 
olson pavement that stretched through the endless arteries 
of what had so recently been the proud and wicked com- 
mercial capital of the mighty and expansive West. Vast 
heaps of machinery of cunning skill and matchless work- 


20 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


manship, now disjointed and warped out of all usefulness by 
the destructive element that had tried it in the ungovernable 
furnace of fervent heat, were to be seen on all sides. The 
front of some of the principal blocks of stores could be 
traced by the huge iron safes, that still rested, in almost 
uniform lines, where they had dropped through into the 
ashes. For miles upon miles all the more palpable evidences 
of a great conflagration had been removed. Of the scores 
of churches, whose vain pomp of architecture had so recently 
mocked the manger of the founder of Christianity, the 
ruined walls of one alone remained. The horrid gaps in its 
blackened masonry seemed grinning in mockery of its proud 
founders, and its steepled dome leaned dangerously from the 
Heaven its pride had so recently offended. 

Reader, your imagination is unequal to the task of fully 
contemplating the matchless ruins of Chicago. Pen and 
pencil, with their almost divine magic, are feeble here. Think 
of twenty -seven hundred acres of crowded warehouses and costly 
dwellings, filled with all the productions and luxuries of a 
highly stimulated commercial civilization, reduced to ashes 
in a fiery crucible — a hatful of alkali to each million dollars — 
and you have the facts in a convenient compass for contem- 
plation ! 

At 5 o’clock I started for Milwaukee. The track lies 
along the western shore of Lake Michigan, that wonderful 
body of fresh water that is more dangerous to vessels than 
the Atlantic ocean, and whose wrecks are more numerous 
than those of any sea in the world. We arrived in Milwau- 
kee about 9 o’clock in the evening, and here fate made a last 
desperate effort to divert me from the continuance of my 
journey to almost solitary exile in the wilderness. A great 
wind smote the lake, and the steamer dare not venture out 
upon the turbulent waters ! I staid all night at the Kirby 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


21 


House, an excellent Hotel with all possible accommodations, 
and kept by a fine looking landlord, and a gentleman of most 
courteous dignity of bearing. His name is A. Kirby. Fare 
only $2 per day. I paid my bill, so this is no “ dead-head ” 
notice. 

Milwaukee is a city of ninety thousand inhabitants, seventy 
thousand being of German origin. It is situated on a high 
bluff of the lake and has a secure harbor. It is solidly and 
massively built of cream colored brick ; and does an immense 
business in grain, pork, beef, and general merchandise, and 
is destined in a few years to become a great and notable city. 
And yet in 1840, Milwaukee was refused a post office by the 
government on the ground of not having inhabitants enough 
to justify such a favor ! Think of this, ye dull natives of 
Trenton, and go into your holes ! Your city is five times as 
old as this place in the wilderness of Wisconsin, and yet you 
have not stamina enough to build a mile of railroad, and you 
are without a hundred yards of decent street pavement in all 
your borders ! Avaunt ! 

The Germans are a wonderful people in a new country. 
Democratic in politics, and jealous of the encroachments of 
government, these great elements of sturdiness in manhood 
and pride in citizenship, constitute the Germans the most 
desirable emigrants possible for a nation like ours. It was 
Western German patriotism that went farthest in the support 
of the government during the aristocratic slave-holding rebel- 
lion. Coming from a country where tinselled courts and 
sensual potentates absorbed the greatest share of the profits 
of honest toil, they could hold no sympathy with a treason 
that intended to perpetuate a like condition of things in a 
republican government. 

It is a suggestive sight to stand at the depot and watch 
the arrival of the long lines of emigrant trains as they 


22 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


pour into Milwaukee. You see thousands of German men, 
women, and children, dressed in the loose, coarse costumes 
of their country, clamber down from the cars to await the 
next trains toward their destination. The father and mother 
have great burdens of bedding upon their backs, under the 
weight of which they are compelled to stagger. The little 
children follow after, each one with some household utensil 
in hand, silent, wondering and contented in happy expecta- 
tion. And these people, dumb to our language, strangers to 
our laws and customs, scatter themselves into the wilds of 
the vast West, and in a few years hew out new States to 
brighten in our confederate constellation. May Germany 
ever have a free and full welcome to our shores. 

The next evening, at 9 o’clock, I went aboard of the large 
and staunch steamer “Lac La Belle,” or “ Belle of the Lake,” 
bound for the Michigan shore at Grand Haven, directly oppo- 
site Milwaukee. The boat was advertised to leave at half- 
past 9 o’clock, and I found about fifty strong and rough- 
looking men in the cabin, mainly wood-choppers, on their 
way to the Michigan forests to fell pine trees for the hun- 
dreds of steam saw mills that line the shore of the lake from 
Grand Traverse to Grand Rapids river, a distance of three 
hundred miles. But the steamer did not leave her moorings 
until near 1 o’clock the next morning. All night long a 
large body of men was engaged in rolling and carrying the 
cargo on board, until not a foot of stowage room remained. 
And even then thousands of tons of the produce of Wisconsin 
farms remained in the immense freight depot awaiting ship- 
ment. The destruction of Chicago has temporarily doubled 
the business of Milwaukee, and an immense amount of freight 
has been thus diverted from the Michigan Central to the 
Milwaukee and Detroit Railroad, on its way to your eastern 
seaboard. 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


23 


The bell finally sounded its parting salute, the gang-ways 
were cleared, and we steamed out of the Wisconsin river into 
the seemingly limitless waters of the great lake. 

Michigan is the most treacherous of waters. It covers 
nearly three times the surface of the entire State of New 
Jersey, and is as capricious in its moods as an infant. You 
start upon its waters under a cloudless sky, with a breeze 
hardly sufficient to stir the curls (false) upon the neck of 
beauty. In less than an hour you will see the wary mariner 
scanning a cloud in the west no bigger than a man’s hand. It 
spreads with the rapidity of electricity, and the winds rush 
from their caves to sport with the wave and its wrecks. The 
vessel, which but a few moments before steamed along with 
hardly preceptible motion, now begins to strain, and groan^ 
and plunge, under the torture of the aroused elements. Soon 
the cabin is a scene worthy of the admirer of the animate 
picturesque. Men, women and children are pitched from 
one side of the cabin to the other, and thrown about in a 
manner that would be most ludicrously laughable, but for the 
fact of there being no disinterested spectator to the per- 
formance. All are compelled to take a hand in the game ; 
and the emptying of stomachs upon the floor, or into each 
other’s laps, is the rule, instead of the exception. The cuss 
who could laugh at his associates in misery under such 
circumstances, must be a trifle Satanic in his humor ! 

The marine statistics of Lake Michigan for the year just 
passed, show disasters to over one thousand vessels. She 
rarely releases the dead from her depths of a thousand feet. 
Her fretted waters have neither tides nor currents, save such 
as her erratic winds bestow upon their surface. As I sit here 
now, writing, in my little log cabin, the wind blowing a 
partial gale, I can hear thundering surges upon her beach, 
coming in landward through the dark and dense forests. 


24 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


But, on the occasion of which I write, Fate seemed to have 
withdrawn further protest against my departure, and yielded 
to the proverb that “a willful man must have his way.” The 
lake was on its best behavior, and but a gentle ripple dis- 
turbed its placidity. I lay until daylight upon the cot of 
my state room, disturbed only by the melodious snore of the 
burly bison of a backwoodsman who bunked above me. Once 
I reached up and punched him in the side with my umbrella, 
but the monstrous heathen only grunted an anathema, and 
snored the louder ! Pardon me, Bev. Sir, if I prayed for a 
shipwreck to avenge me upon mine adversary ! 

At daylight I arose, refreshed like a toad under a harrow, 
and ascended to the deck. The high sandy bluffs of the 
Michigan shore of the lake loomed up dimly in the far 
distance. A thousand sea gulls flapped their white wings 
against the placid waters, or sailed in the higher atmosphere 
above us. Far inland, out of the majestic forests of green- 
topped hemlock and pine, the crimson heralds of the coming 
god of day began to kindle their resplendent fires. I stood 
for an hour upon the deck, motionless and entranced, at the 
marvelous glory of the scenic solitude. The waters, the sky, 
the forests, illimitable in all, made me a worshiper of God 
and his universe, though I marred not my holy devotion with 
outward sign. If this is “ infidelity,” let the votaries in 
temples made by hands excommunicate me without benefit of 
clergy ! I have learned to stand most anything, for my 
unworthy life has been at warfare with the most sacred 
formulas that have become established in the minds of men. 

About 9 o’clock we reached Grand Haven, a town of over 
two thousand inhabitants. It owes its existence and pros- 
perity to its lumber trade, and around and about it are thirty 
steam saw mills, going night and day. The lake, here, is a 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


25 


little over ninety miles wide, in a direct line to Milwaukee, 
and we made the distance in about nine hours. 

I soon took the cars to Muskegon, on my way north to my 
new home. The distance to Muskegon is fifteen miles, and 
we made it in sixty-five minutes, the new track being in 
unusually good condition, and no one stoppage taking up 
more than fifteen minutes to let off a passenger ! The last 
census gave Muskegon a population of six thousand and two, 
and yet the blackened stumps of the recent wilderness still 
stand thickly in her principal streets ! Her saw mills are 
her only source of prosperity. 

Here I took another railroad for White Hall, a town of 
eight hundred people, eighteen miles distant from Muskegon. 
The speed on this road astonished me, notwithstanding I had 
made one trip in my life on the Freehold and Farmingdale 
road, in my once-loved State of Hew Jersey. By fastening 
the vision firmly upon a tree, you could satisfy yourself that 
the train was in motion ! 

At the end of the first half hour I became alarmed, and sug- 
gested to the conductor — a gentleman in very thin legs and 
astonishingly large feet — that he reverse the cow-catcher to 
the rear of the train, for fear that a drove of cattle, that 
started from Muskegon a few minutes after we did, might 
run into us. The conductor looked me intently in the eye 
for a few seconds, with a gleam of pity in his face, and passed 
on with never a word. He was followed by a boy peddling 
prize candy packages to the credulous passengers. Taking it 
for granted that the lad was the inevitable newsboy of all 
passenger trains, and forgetting for an instant my change of 
place and circumstances, I requested him to bring me the 
Hew York Tribune. The boy started, slightly changed color, 
and responded with — 

“ The what ?’ 

B 


26 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


“ The New York Tribune ” 

The lad drew a long breath and slid past me. Two seats 
to the rear he met the conductor, and I heard him whisper to 
that functionary : 

“ That old feller over thar's crazy ; he axed me for a New 
York Trombone!” 

The conductor then recited to the astonished lad my sug- 
gestion about the cow-catcher, and after that the twain never 
passed me without a scrutinizing look, in which alarm was 
blended with commiseration. 

White Hall found me at the end of all railroad connection 
with Northern Michigan. The region beyond is an almost 
unbroken extent of primeval wilderness for three hundred 
miles. 

White Hall is upon an elevated plain, and the situation is 
a truly pretty one. Like all western towns, it is laid out to 
limitless expansion. The founders of these embryo cities 
seem to contemplate the no distant day when their now villages 
will rival New York and Philadelphia in population and 
wealth. Muskegon takes in many square miles, and the lots 
in its only business street are held at $175 per foot. And yet, 
in less than ten years from now, the valuable timber of this 
region will have all disappeared, and the decay of the town 
will then be as swift as its incidental prosperity. 

The contrast between the lake shores of Wisconsin and 
Michigan are very striking. From Chicago to Milwaukee, 
eighty-five miles by railroad, are spread numerous beautiful 
villages, handsomely built and adorned, and showing all the 
comforts of Eastern civilization. The intervals are filled 
up with finely cultivated farms, with large and comfortable 
houses and barns. You cross the lake to Michigan, and it 
seems like stepping from civil into savage existence. The 
towns are simply lumber depots, without agricultural in- 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 27 

terests. The roads from town to town are only avenues forced 
through forests of unbroken solitude, with here and there the 
log huts of lumbermen, but no signs of agriculture larger 
than a patch for potatoes, or for corn sufficient to fatten the 
solitary pig of the wild settler. And yet Michigan is an old 
State, while Wisconsin but sprang into existence yesterday. 
The valuable lumber lands of Northern Michigan have held 
her back in the race of Western progression. Speculators 
have monopolized these, and labor has been diverted from the 
soil to the felling of trees and the sawing of logs. The few 
have thus become rich, and the many are the slaves of a 
system of labor that promises no benefits in the future. 

At White Hall I hired a man for eight dollars to take me 
to my destination, twenty- two miles distant. We at once 
plunged into the depths of the hemlocks, whose dense growth 
and thick green boughs almost shut out the light of day. 
Not a bird, nor an animal, biped, or quadruped, greeted our 
vision for the first eighteen miles. Then followed at intervals 
little clearings of from one to five acres, and the axe of the 
new settler resounded from the gloomy recesses of the forests 
in every direction. We had now entered the southern rim of 
the promising “ fruit belt” of Northern Michigan, and the 
land of “ great expectations” in the immediate future. About 
every mile opened to our view a little peach orchard among 
the blackened stumps, the trees of which had just been set 
out, and ground was being prepared for others as fast as the 
axe could dispossess the old forest trees of their freehold, for 
the benefit of the new delicate exotic. 

And now from the lofty, broad and level bluff of the 
“ Claybanks,” the mighty lake breaks upon my vision, and 
its green, limpid waters seem rolled out to immensity. A 
sudden turn in the woods, and the majestic inland ocean is 
again eclipsed from view, but its melancholy moanings still 


28 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


touch the heart and the understanding with a pleasing sad- 
ness. At noon the last mile was overcome, and on ascending 
a high elevation, a clearing of forty acres, encircled by mighty 
hemlocks of the growth of centuries, was presented to my 
gaze, and in the midst thereof stood the little log cabin of 
My New Home in Northern Michigan.” Johnny and little 
Alice stood at the door, and, with the mutual exclamation of 
(i Oh ! here’s Pop,” ran out to greet me. 

I found my domestic fortress in these inhospitable wilds to 
be a cabin of decayed and crumbling logs, upon whose roof, 
from the outside, I could “lay hands” without theological 
authority. But my wife, who is an extravagant and preten- 
tious woman, had, “ unbeknownst ” to me, and without 
marital authority from the party on the other part, added a 
$50 addition to the north side of our ancient and time- 
honored domicil. This little exhibition of wifely pride and 
womanly vanity has probably blighted my political aspira- 
tions forever and a day. The less favored settlers have 
booked me in their memories as a “rustikrat” invader upon 
their simple tastes and habits ! I came here with visions of 
a future seat in Congress ; but a woman has let Satan into 
this paradise of anticipatory salary grabbing ! 

There is a little bit of romance connected with this cabin 
of ours that will interest the general reader, and I propose to 
relate it right here. About twenty years ago, when Chicago 
was just struggling into city hood, there resided within its 
comparatively sinless limits a young man named John 

S . This young man had fallen in love with a young 

woman of the vicinage, whose name is omitted by the gossips 
of this legend hereabouts, and so, unfortunately, cannot be 
embalmed in the immortality of this volume. For conve- 
nience sake we will call her Mary, a name ever sacred in the 
recollection of many of us. Well, in due time Mary accepted 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


29 


the overtures of her impassioned lover, and promised to join 
teams with him in the burden of life. But even when the 
“ happy day ” was but a few weeks in the future, his affianced 
met a more attractively bedizened “ feller ” at a party, who 
wore “store clothes” of the latest fashion, gold rings upon 
his fingers, sang such affecting love songs as “Barbara Allen/’ 
“Lord Lovell,” &c., and parted his bear-oiled hair in the 
middle. The young man thus endowed by art and nature 
laid siege to the heart of the simple country girl, and the 
garrison, after a feeble resistance, surrendered at discretion. 
In short, Mary “went back ” on John, and was soon engaged 
to his rival. The blow staggered our hero beyond recovery 
Like Hamlet, Prince of Dunkirk, he became morose, moody ? 
and possessed of a melancholy that bordered close upon 
insanity. For days he walked about 

“ With his doublet all unbrac’d: 

No hat upon his head ; his stockings foul’d, 

Ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ankles ; 

Pale as his shirt : his knees knocking each other ; 

And with a look so piteous in purport, 

As if he had been loosed out of hell, 

To speak of horrors.” 

Thus torn by the hopeless pangs of betrayed affection, he 
wandered one day down to the estuary of the great lake, just 
as a party of Indians, having disposed of the furs of the 
winter’s trapping, were about to return to their lodges in the 
upper wilderness. He stepped into one of the canoes without 
a word, seated himself upon a pile of blankets, and bent his 
head in moody reflection upon his knees. The two chiefs of 
the red men held a brief consultation in reference to the silent 
intruder, which evidently resulted in accepting the situation. 
In a few minutes the elder in command gave a signal wave 
of the hand, the paddles dipped silently into the waters, and 


30 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


the fleet shot out northward. On the fifth day thereafter, 
several stoppages along the shore having been made to shoot 
deer and broil venison steaks, the boats reached Petite Point 
au Sauble, one-half mile in a direct line from the cabin in 
which I now am penning this little episode of local history. 
The Indians, about thirty in number, had arrived at the 
landing place of their reservation, and at once began to 
unload the proceeds of their trading expedition. When the 
last package was removed, the leader of the band touched our 
hero upon the shoulder and motioned him to shore. He 
obeyed without a word, for he seemed hopelessly bewildered 
in mind, and as passive as a child. The burdens were soon 
strapped upon the backs of the Indians, the chiefs bearing 
their share with their followers, and the procession, in single 
file, marched up the steep sand bank that still borders the 
dense and sunless depths of pine and hemlock. 

A march of twelve miles brought the party to the lodges 
of their tribe, on the spot now occupied by the village of 
Hart, the capital of this, Oceana county. Our hero remained 
with his involuntary captors for about six months, during 
which time, by his skill in the use of the few tools attainable, 
he constructed a new council chamber for the tribe, and a 
number of cabins for the chief men, of wonderful design and 
workmanship. At the end of this time he signified his 
intended departure. The tribe, (the remnant of the old and 
warlike Chippawas, and numbering about eighteen hundred 
souls), remonstrated in vain against this resolution. The 
chief, Big Bone, even offered our hero his beautiful daughter 
to wife, but the temptation fell upon unheeding ears. John 
came into the wilderness to get rid forever of the presence of 
the white woman, and the red one was not likely to win 
him from his general abhorrence of the sex. A wife ! No, 
none for John ! He was not to be Chicagoed a second 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


31 


time. The forest fawn of the lodge of Big Bone, whose feet 
were flat and broad upon the mountains, and in whose nose 
glittered the bone of the lake trout, plied her native arts in 
vain upon the petrified affections of our hero ! 

It was while the dogwood was yet in its second blossom, 
and the leaves on the maple had begun to crimson at the 

touch of the early frost, that John S strapped his 

blankets upon his back, shouldered his rifle, belted his axe 
about him, and, followed by the wails and supplications of 
these simple children of nature, struck out with long strides 
into the silence of the surrounding forests. He took the 
trail that led to Little Point Sauble, his landing point six 
months before. The sun, enveloped in his evening robes of 
gold and scarlet, with the encircling soft and fleecy clouds at 
a respectable distance from his more dazzling glory, was half 
hidden in the waters of the mighty lake, when our hero 
reached the rounded eminence destined to be so long his 
future home. He leaned his rifle against a huge pine of four 
centuries’ growth, the sturdy stump of which still remains in 
the “ clearing,” three paces from my dingy window, mocking 
decay with its resinous roots. He next proceeded to loose his 
axe, and commenced lopping branches from a recently up- 
rooted hemlock. Of these he had soon formed a sufficient 
shelter for the night. He then made a healthy supper upon 
cold venison and parched corn, and laid down to a sleep that 
but few of the rich and great are capable of enjoying. 

The sun, in russet mantle clad, had just begun climbing 
the heights of yon high eastern hill — [, ShaJcspeare ] — when 
our hero awoke. He offered up the - first prayer probably 
ever supplicated to God in this unbroken wild, and then pro- 
ceeded to the new duties of life. Day after day he cut down 
the smaller trees, and fashioned them into the requisite shape 
for his proposed dwelling. The half dozen lumbermen then 


32 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


in this region gathered together to assist him at the “ raising,” 

and before the storms of November set in, John S 

found himself housed in a comfortable cabin, built by the 
labor of his own hands, not a stick or a nail of which cried 
out against the oppression or injustice of its founder. How 
many of your eastern “ West End ” nabobs, in their heavily- 
carpeted and gilded palaces, can show as clear a title to 
humanity and Heaven as this? Don’t all speak at once. 
Lying is an abomination in the sight of the Lord ! 

And here, for nineteen years, lived honest John S , 

at peace with his own conscience and his God. In due course 
of time, with hard labor at the saw-mills, -which soon began 
to appear along the lake shore, he was enabled to purchase 
his forty acres, paying for the same the sum of §50. Of this 
he had ten acres cleared, a small peach and apple orchard 
set out and in bearing, everything around him lovely, and 
he himself, but for one corroding memory, a happy and con- 
tented man. 

Just about one year ago, a change came o’er the spirit of 
our hero. A rustic ball was held on the 22d of February at 
the “ Point,” now a thriving settlement of four cabins and 
one “ store.” John was persuaded to attend. He entered 
the charmed circle of dancers with all the shy timidity of a 
youthful novice in the ways of civilization. When at last 
he lifted up his eyes, in the courage of increasing confidence, 
he felt himself entranced by a vision they encountered. 
There, fair, fat, and forty, but as pale as the linen that 
encircled her throat, with gaze fixed steadily upon his face — 
like one who has eyes, -yet sees not — stood the beloved of his 
early manhood ! 

I am not a novelist, nor a man of imagination, but rather 
a sturdy delver in facts. Therefore, I propose to finish 
this true history without garnish or the gloss of improbable 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


33 


romance. As soon as his betrothed could recover sufficient 
self-possession for the effort, she crossed the room to her long- 
lost lover, took his hard yet trembling hand in her own, bent 
her head upon his bosom, and sobbed like an unhappy child. 
Of course, the wondering rustics were surprised at the strange 
scene, but had too much native delicacy of feeling to smile 
or giggle at that which they instinctively felt was sacred 
from vulgar comment and intrusion. 

The explanation which finally followed elucidated the fol- 
lowing facts : Mary, in expressing a preference for the 
“ store clothes feller,” and permitting it to be hinted among 
her associates that she was engaged to be married to him, had 
only indulged in one of those arts of coquetry with which 
so many young women foolishly try to test the devotion of 
the one they truly love. The sudden disappearance of her 
lover had awakened her to the wickedness of her conduct, 
and she had known but transient gleams of happiness since. 
A sister of hers had married one of a company of mill 
owners at the Point, and she was on a visit there when the 
strange meeting we have recorded was the result. The 
parties, thus strangely re-united after twenty years of silent 
absence, were married within the week, and that’s the way 
our hero came to sell his forty acres, with the “ improve- 
ments,” to us, for the sum of $725, and departed with his 
bride to their old home in Chicago. Reader of “ blighted 
affections,” go thou and do likewise ! 

Having disposed of the preliminary journey and its im- 
mediate incidents, I now propose to convey my readers to the 
very ground of my new home, that they may stand with me 
and mine and take a view of the strange solitude and its sur- 
roundings. The location i^ called Blackberry Ridge, from 
the wonderful spontaneous growth and productiveness of that 
fruit in this immediate section. Our cabin occupies an em- 


34 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


inence two hundred and fifty feet above the level of Lake 
Michigan, and is just one-half mile in a direct line from that 
wonderful and mysterious body of water. The moan of its 
troubled spirit goeth up unceasingly to the Infinite through 
these almost unbroken solitudes ; and when the winds are 
loosed in their fury, the melancholy dirge can be heard for 
many miles inland. There is nothing that so lulls the soul 
into sympathy with eternity, and absolves it from unholy 
skepticism, as the voice of mighty waters in the waste and 
desert places. In this glorious wilderness, by the shores of 
this lonely inland ocean, not even the fool can say in his 
heart, “ There is no God /” 

The “ clearing,” on the western verge of which stands our 
cabin, comprises about one hundred and twenty acres. Of 
this we have forty acres. Two other cabins are visible, di- 
viding with ours the cleared arena. Then we travel miles 
before encountering other settlers. My nearest neighbor? 
Charles Sessions, came in from the southern part of Michigan 
one year ago. Next to him is James Gibbs, postmaster, on a 
salary of $10 per year, and a Democrat. He came in as a 
lumberman about a dozen years ago, felled pine trees for the 
saw-mills for about five years, and when these were pretty 
well thinned out, Gibbs pre-empted a homestead of about one 
hundred and sixty acres, and became a “ settler.” He came 
from Pennsylvania. 

The timber here is divided into what is called “ hard wood” 
and “ soft wood.” The former consists mainly of beech and 
maple ; the latter of pine and hemlock. All this region, for 
hundreds of miles, has been surveyed off into forty-acre tracts. 
But very few of the settlers own over one of these lots. All 
the land here was originally held by the mill proprietors, 
speculators from other States, who bought vast tracts for the 
immense pines which grew thereon. 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


35 


These pine forests lined the eastern shore of the lake for 
hundreds of miles, and hundreds of saw-mills have been en- 
gaged in their destruction for the past ten years. The waste 
has been fearful. Between here and Chicago, a distance of 
two hundred miles, but few pines are left in majestic suprem- 
acy, the lordlings of the forest. For ten years the “ best ” 
have been annually marked by the spoilers, hewn down, and 
cast into the saw-mills. But the huge hemlocks have been 
passed by as worthless for commercial purposes. The new 
settler alone makes war upon these. They are yearly cut 
down by thousands, left to dry for a season, and then the re- 
morseless fire is let loose for their destruction. I have seen 
acres of huge trees, most of them measuring from ten to 
fifteen feet in girth, set on fire and consumed that room might 
be made for the plow. There is a hemlock “ forty ” joining 
our location on the south. Seven years ago it was traded off 
for an old horse, worth $20. It can be bought to-day for 
$300. If you had it near Trenton it would be worth over 
$100,000. Next fall men will be engaged in cutting it down 
for the sole purpose of giving its beautiful lumber to the 
flames. 

There is a singular feature in these forests of Northern 
Michigan. One forty-acre tract will be covered exclusively 
with hemlock. With hardly a perceptible gradation, the ad- 
joining forty will be entirely of beech and maple. And so it 
will alternate for miles. The “soft” timber has a fertile soil 
of sandy loam ; the “ hard ” has an admixture of clay and 
lime, and is considered far preferable for agricultural purposes. 

On the west and south our cleared circle is girded by hem- 
lock ; on the east and west the hard timber mainly prevails. 
The contrast is very striking. The white, deep snow is en- 
circled on one side by the denuded giants of the forest ; on 
the other, the dense, dark limbs of the evergreens prevail 


36 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


over all the changes of the seasons. I often wander forth of 
a moonlight night — strangely brilliant in this latitude — 
entranced by the magnitude and silence of these forests. At 
irregular intervals, amid the leafless wilderness of oak and 
beech and maple, rises up the majestic pine, straight and 
limbless for an hundred feet, crowned with a feathery helmet 
of green, and towering in altitude fully one-third above all 
its surroundings, presenting a weird and ghost-like appear- 
ance that requires a more capable pen than mine to fully 
portray. 

The density of these northern forests is surprising. The 
trees grow to an immense height, and so closely together that 
the sun seldom penetrates their foliage. Standing in one of 
these clearings, and scanning the outlines of the woods, the 
great trunks seem so to press upon each other that one would 
deem it difficult for a cow to force her way into their depths. 
From these clearings one rides for miles, along narrow roads 
winding among the trees, and filled with stumps, without any 
signs of life or civilization. There is one road leading north 
from this neighborhood, that can be traveled sixty miles 
without meeting a human habitation. And this is the general 
face of the country, clear across this secluded State, from Lake 
Michigan to Lake Huron, and three hundred miles north and 
northwest to Lake Superior. You of the old and busy east 
cannot begin to appreciate the utter isolation and loneliness of 
this vast region, or that sickness of heart that, despite his 
philosophy, will at times overtake the voluntary exile from 
an older and more seductive civilization. 

It commenced snowing here on the 20th of November, two 
days after my arrival. For six long weeks it continued, with 
almost unbroken violence, and in all that period the sun w r as 
not visible for two hours, put it altogether. Five feet of 
snow fell in December, and violent winds raged without in- 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


37 


termission. On the 16th of the month in which I now write 
(April) I came near perishing in a snow storm, having been 
overtaken several miles from my cabin. On Sunday, the 
21st, another fierce snow storm was hurled from the heavens, 
and heavy icicles were formed at the eaves. One hundred 
and forty days of unbroken sleighing have here marked the 
terrible season, only now just fairly passing away. To-day, 
April 28th, the boys are plowing, with patches of snow still 
upon the fields. But there is a balm in the glorious atmos- 
phere ; the robin and the blue-bird are happy in our little 
orchard, and we live in a faith that tells us that seed time and 
harvest are not even here neglected of God. 

But the ordeal to me this winter has been a fearful one. 
My life has been passed in cities and amid the tumult of men. 
For six months have I been imprisoned from all these, in a 
cabin in the wilderness, without one single link holding me 
to life-long associations. To step out from the rarely 
traveled road was to bury myself in the snow-drift. There 
was neither store nor tavern as a resort in which to relax the 
terrible monotony. There is not a single church in all this 
broad township of Benona, and not one drop of ameliorating 
whisky can be obtained for even “ medicinal” purposes. The 
hardy pioneers here, who labor so hard and endure so many 
privations, are, with one exception, temperance men, and 
mainly members of the Order of Good Templars. 

What I have carelessly written thus far has been at idle 
intervals, without any regard to the harmony of connection, 
or any caution against repetition. I had no thought of book 
making then, and since that weakness, against the remon- 
strance of judgment, has taken bankrupt possession of me, 
the assets must remain even in the condition in which they 
were found. 

I have been very hard at work for a month past. My own 


38 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


hands have cut, planted, and covered four acres of Early 
Kose potatoes, finishing the unwonted work on the 5th day of 
May. We have fifty bushels more to put into the generous 
virgin soil of this yet untamed wilderness, and the ground 
will be ready for the work to-morrow. Then come six acres 
of corn, five of the little white beans of commerce, millet for 
the kine, and many other things of minor import. To-mor- 
row we shall finish setting out our thirty-acre orchard, con- 
sisting of one thousand apple trees, three thousand peach 
trees, five hundred quinces and plums, together with pear,, 
cherry, &c. We have been three weeks at this job, with a 
half-dozen men to assist us. It will be a glorious sight in 
a few years from now, when I am old enough to die, and life 
has become a burden — which a sensible man would desire to 
lay aside for the unknown future of eternal life or eternal 
death — to see this thirty acres of red and white blossoms 
blooming amid thousands of blackened stumps, and belted by 
the encircling forest, giving its odor and its beauty from the 
hand of God to the senses of man. It will seem strange to 
most of my readers, this tale of southern fruit promise, away 
up here in this northern latitude, by the mighty lakes, where 
winter rages or lingers for fully one-half the year. And yet 
there is no spot on all this broad country of ours where 
peaches, apples, plums, strawberries, raspberries, and their 
kind, come to more profuse and certain perfection than right 
here in this circumscribed location of my new home in the 
West — Petite Point au Sauble, running fifteen miles out into 
the dark, restless, and treacherous waters of Lake Michigan. 
Five miles inland these fruits, apples excepted, will not grow 
to production. It is the milder influence of the immense 
body of water by which we are nearly surrounded, that 
makes this great difference of temperature. 

My little cabin window, about two feet square, (blessed be 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


39 


God, there is no worldly pride here to fret the souls of women 
and deplete the pockets of men !) opens upon a scene of sad 
and solemn beauty, which enlarges the Deity within us to an 
approximate comprehension of the Deity beyond all visible 
externals. The moon is full-fledged, and in this thin, pure 
atmosphere, gives out a resplendent magnificence upon forest 
and clearing that robs the sun and day of all their assumed 
superiority, and makes the dullest observer akin to the spirits 
of just men made perfect. O ye slothful servitors of Chris- 
tianity, in the whitened sepulchres of your city Sabbaths, if 
ye would get nearer the Heaven you offend with your mock- 
eries, and further from the Hell upon Avhich your feet daily 
and willfully take hold, come out here and help me plant 
potatoes in the daytime, and worship the living and the true 
God through the work of His hands as reflected in the moon- 
light of these vast solitudes ! It is so easy to be a Christian 
here that there hardly seems to be saving merit in it. If 
there be damnation beyond death, the city pursuers of wealth 
will mainly agonize under the inexorable decree. No man 
can be persistently wicked in the pure surroundings of 
Nature. 

Seventeen years ago the first white man attempted a busi- 
ness residence on the lake shore, within many miles of my 
present location. Ira Minard, of Illinois, was the first to 
take advantage of the great timber wealth of this large 
county. He established a saw-mill at Stony Creek, an 
outlet of Stony Lake into Lake Michigan, about six miles 
south of my new home. A. R. Wheeler, of the State of 
New York, a very worthy and intelligent gentleman, was the 
agent of Mr. Minard in the enterprise. Roving bands of 
Indian hunters held possession of the country, and not a 
cultivated patch of ground could be seen from Grand Haven, 
one hundred miles south, to Grand Traverse, one hundred 


40 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


and Tfty miles north. The second winter Mr. Wheeler was 
here proved a very severe one, and the solitary Indian trail 
that led to the trading post of Grand Haven was so blocked 
with snow as to be rendered impassable. Previous to this, 
the men at the mill used to make periodical trips to Grand 
Haven for provisions, returning with the same strapped 
upon their backs. On this occasion starvation threatened 
the occupants of the two cabins at the creek. As the 
dilemma became more serious, a trapper, a white man by the 
name of Chapin, volunteered to go in his log canoe to Grand 
Haven for supplies. He told Mr. Wheeler that if he were 
disposed to trust him with the necessary funds, he was willing 
to encounter the risk of the journey. The agreement was at 
once made, and Chapin started on his perilous trip. The 
lake was ice-bound for a quarter of a mile from its shore, 
and the huge waves thundered incessantly against this jagged 
and slippery barrier. Through dangers and hardships that 
can scarcely be credited, the dauntless hunter fought his way 
alone on the wintry waters to his destination. He procured 
a barrel of beef, one of pork, together with a quantity of 
small stores, and proceeded on his return. At the end of 
two days of fearful labor and peril, his practiced eye dis- 
cerned a storm coming up from out of the west. He at once 
turned the prow of his canoe against the ice-barrier of the 
beach, and cut his way with an axe to the shore. He rolled 
his provisions high up upon the sand and entered the forest. 
With hemlock boughs he constructed a sort of shelter from 
the terrible storm that ensued, and rolling himself up in 
blankets, remained completely “ snowed under,” for two days 
and nights. At the end of this period, he regained his boat, 
re-loaded his provisions, backed out of his ice canal, and in 
a few days reached Stony Creek in safety, but in a state of 
complete exhaustion. Mr. Wheeler told out into the horny 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


41 


hand of the unselfish adventurer, twenty-seven hard silver 
dollars, as a reward for this perilous service. The hunter 
carefully counted and re-counted the dazzling coins, dropped 
fifteen of them, one by one, slowly into his untanned deer- 
skin pouch, and forced the balance back upon Mr. Wheeler, 
absolutely repulsing all the efforts of that gentleman to 
induce him to pocket the remainder. Mr. Chapin now 
resides at Pentwater, twelve miles north of here, and has a 
comfortable home. He is a hale, hearty, honest old man of 
nearly seventy years, with no stain of meanness or crime 
upon his conscience. How would it have been with him had 
he lived in cities ? 

The success of Ira Minard, in the lumber business, soon 
attracted the attention of other men of resources, and mills 
gradually went up along the lake shore, at intervals of about 
a dozen miles, from Muskegon to the northern head of the 
lake, a distance of nearly three hundred miles. The land was 
held by the Government, and each mill company purchased 
thousands of acres, and the work of demolition began ; the 
glorious old pine forests, as old as the Mosaic creation, were 
assailed, night and day, by thousands of sturdy axmen, and 
scarcely a semblance of their former glory remains in all this 
region round about. The comparatively worthless hemlock, 
and “hard wood,” have alone escaped this crusade of “civil- 
ization.” Steam mills have sprung up in the wilderness 
further inland, and one of those near us has just completed 
a contract to saw seventy-five million feet of white and 
Norway pine for a company in Chicago. Three miles east of 
us, Kearswell & Co., lumbermen from Maine, hold twenty- 
five hundred acres of pine lands, now nearly denuded of 
marketable timber, by seven years of incessant assaults of 
hundreds of axmen. Their mill is a very large one, and 
chiefly manufactures what is here called “siding,” but in New 

c 


42 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


Jersey is known as “ weather-boards.” The amount they 
annually cut up, with their marvelous machinery, staggers 
belief. A huge log is cast into the terrible maw of the mill, 
and in a few seconds the “siding” slides down an inclined 
plane, perfect for use. It is mainly shipped to Boston, and 
commands $70 per thousand feet. I wish my readers could 
travel through this wild region in the early spring, and see 
for themselves the millions upon millions of huge logs that 
have been cut down and “ skidded,” ready for hauling during 
the winter, and they would think that the whole world was 
being supplied with lumber from the forests of Northern 
Michigan. 

The way this country was finally opened to agricultural 
attempts may prove of interest to my few readers. 

The land was originally purchased solely for its pine. 
When denuded of this, it was considered worthless. The 
mill companies who owned it were from other States, and had 
no other interest in Michigan further than to despoil her 
grand old forests. Ten years ago the land thus despoiled was 
offered for twenty-five cents per acre. A neighbor of mine, 
William Worth, an emigrant from northern New York, was 
offered a forty-acre tract adjoining his homestead, if he would 
enter thereon and cut seventeen cords of “ stave bolts” for 
the owner. These stave bolts are cut from oak trees, for the 
manufacture of barrels. Eight trees would have furnished 
the required number of bolts, and these trees could have been 
reached in any fifty square yards of the tract, and could have 
been got out in ten days. But the offer was refused. Another 
neighbor bought his forty acres for an old rifle, a powder 
horn, and a pouch of buckshot. 

The original settlers were chiefly the lumbermen who came 
into the “ pineries” for winter work. A few of these each 
season became squatters, and reared up little log cabins. They 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


43 


worked at the mills in the summer to get supplies for their 
families, and many of them plied the ax half the night to get 
a little “ clearing” around the cabin. Then, with a borrowed 
ox from a more prosperous neighbor, perhaps many miles 
away, they would break up the yielding, sandy soil, and, 
amid half-burned logs and stumps, plant a peck of potatoes, 
a little corn, a few square yards of garden, and trust to 
Providence for the result. To the surprise of these first ex- 
perimenters upon this seemingly worthless soil, the crop 
proved astonishingly bountiful. For untold thousands of 
years, Nature had been at work, in the air, in the snow, in 
the water, in combining and secreting vivifying material in 
the soil for the coming men, who were to make the wilder- 
ness blossom like the rose, and the waste places proclaim the 
goodness of God toward all that trust in Him, and are patient 
for his appearing. The field right here before my eyes, which 
has been cultivated for seven years without return of manure, 
and the half of whose surface seems taken up with huge, 
charred stumps, last year produced two hundred bushels of 
potatoes to the acre. Yonder hill top is luxuriously green 
with its first clover, while the southern front of our cabin 
holds a little orchard of fifty peach trees, which were four 
years old last summer, and bowed down with fruit more 
luscious than any that ever made a Jerseyraan smack his lips 
on Jersey soil. Every fence corner, every stump, every open- 
ing in the woods that admits the sunlight of the heavens, is 
beautified and garnished with strawberries, and blackberries, 
and raspberries, and their kindred fruits, lavish in unpruned 
Nature with a profusion that seems like sheer, reckless 
wastefulness ; for neither bird nor beast — and last and least, 
man — can diminish by their necessities or gluttony these 
healthy luxuries of our glorious northern summer by the 
mighty waters of the great lake. 


44 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


Ancl the moral wants of our people are just beginning to 
be met. The first Sunday-school ever attempted for the 
neglected little children of the settlers was organized last 
Sunday. And who do you suspect is the superintendent of 
this Sunday-school in the woods ? Tell it in Gath, publish 
it in the streets of Askalon ! The superintendent is none 
other than your humble servant ! How will that do for 
high ? 

It is night of the 20th of June. The moon is up in a 
cloudless sky, and the weary winds have retired to rest. The 
solemn religious silence of the surrounding forests is as pulse- 
less as death, save where the whip-poor-will utters his tireless 
and monotonous calls. And this lonely bird of the night 
stirs chords within the dim and silent wards of memory that 
have long remained untouched in the reckless past. It is 
now nearly fifty years since I last heard this bird of darkness 
and solitude utter its harsh commands to flagellate the offend- 
ing “ Will,” and well do I now remember the mysterious awe 
with which its persistent repetitions filled my troubled little 
heart. The scene was away up in northern New Jersey, and 
I was a little bare-foot boy, who gave his fond mother a 
world of trouble and anxiety. She is dead now, and that boy 
is growing old and weary-hearted, far from her grave. 

“No more, 

But let us to our story as before. ,, 

It ought to be of interest to all our eastern readers to hear 
how a wooded new country is brought under the dominion of 
agricultural man. The first settler generally comes out with 
an ox team, wife, and children. A tent is stowed in the 
wagon, together with axes, rifles, and a few positively indis- 
pensable cooking utensils. The pioneers travel on, days, 
weeks, and sometimes months before a location is selected. 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 45 * 

Romance has no place in all their thoughts. Fertile land 
and convenient water are the paramount considerations. A 
spot is finally selected, and simple preparations for per- 
manence at once entered upon. The tent is pitched, and the 
weary wife and lesser children are housed in their new home, 
in most cases never again to meet with those with whom all 
their years had been passed. The man and his stouter sons 
now select trees of suitable size, and for the first time since 
the world began to revolve upon its axle-trees, the startled 
forest is awakend by the ring of the woodman’s ax. When 
the logs are properly prepared, the oxen drag them to the 
selected site, and by patient toil, and manly and uncomplain- 
ing privations, a rude log cabin — the forerunner possibly of 
Some future Chicago — lifts its slightly majestic proportions 
amid its wild and primitive surroundings. The “ squatter ” 
having thus established his pre-emption right, goes to work 
with a will upon a “ clearing.” An athletic and tireless 
woodman can cut down an acre of trees in ten days. When 
a few acres have been so far subdued, the trees are left to 
season for a year, that they may yield the more readily to the 
persuasive influence of fire. Abundance of all sorts of game 
furnish food for the family during this period, a little patch 
of corn, cultivated in some natural opening of the surrounding 
forests, furnishing the needed concomitant of bread. 

And here I will digress a moment to attack a popular 
error. It is an accepted untruth that the railroad is the one 
grand pioneer of civilization. Estimable old fogy of a 
philosopher, or political economist, stand up and be corrected. 
This little two-cent box of matches now upon my table is 
worth all the railroads ever built, or now being conceived, in 
wresting the wilderness from the dominion of solitude, and 
the silent reign of nature, and the grand majesty of unin- 
habited space. Fire, fire, is the monarch of civilization whose 


*46 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


sceptre sways the earth, to say nothing of that other place 
that is theologically located a yet unmeasured distance beneath 
it. Not a square mile of wooded land in all the fertile 
sections of the great west and northwest could have been 
reclaimed for agricultural purposes, but for this subtle 
element, given unto us by the all-provident Creator. Let 
Tom Scott, and the ghost of Jim Fisk, make a note of this. 

The timber thus felled is called a “ slashing.” When it is 
sufficiently seasoned, fire is applied, and then ensues a sight 
worth all the election bonfires in New Jersey. The wind is 
high, and the sheeted flame leaps and rushes like hell let 
loose for a holiday. Every leaf, every twig, every limb, 
every green bush, or creeping vine, that had decked or fes- 
tooned the dead and prostrate monarchs of the forest, is 
lapped up by the hungry fires and consumed to ashes. With 
unsatiated appetite, or rather with voracity maddened with 
what it has fed on, the whirlwind of fire sweeps over the 
bounds of the “ slashing,” and rushes onward into the sur- 
rounding wilderness. The startled deer breaks from his 
covert, and the astonished eagle soars screaming upward into 
the heavens. And when night comes down upon the scene, 
it is only to add to the magnificent terror that seems a 'world 
on fire. Thousands of monstrous pines and hemlocks, long 
dead from the weight of centuries, but still erect by their firm 
fastenings — the skeletons of the forest cemetery — are seized 
upon by the insane fury of the fiery whirlwind. Up their 
huge trunks it crawls and leaps, and flaunts its lurid banner ! 
It seizes upon each limb that seems to stretch forth its help- 
less arms imploringly. And now look ! As far as sight can 
penetrate, here is a Saturnalia worthy of all the demons of 
destruction. The hoary trunks of the victims are all a mass 
of glowing fire, and every limb is ablaze with a brilliancy 
that fascinates the beholder, and throws an indescribable 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


47 - 


glory by reflection upon all the surrounding green leafiness of 
the forest. Hark ! Booming through all the avenues of the 
intensified senses, comes a sound like muffled thunder. A 
huge pine has yielded to fate, and falls crashing amid its 
compeers. Millions of sparks fly upward from the fierce 
concussion, and soar upon the wings of the night high up 
into the firmament. And so, boom ! boom ! crash ! crash ! 
all through the night, at irregular intervals, the terrible con- 
flict rages until daylight modifies the fearful and indescriba- 
ble grandeur. I have tried feebly to describe what my own 
eyes have beheld within a month past. I admit the failure 
is a miserable one, and am willing that my enemies shall 
make the most of it. 

The fire of the “ slashing ” having fully exhausted the more 
combustible of its material, the hardest of the work now 
commences, for the “ logging” is what the new settler most 
dreads. The huge bodies of the trees lay prostrate amid the 
ashy ruins and blackened stumps, the sole survivors of the 
conflagration. These are simply charred around the surface. 
The saw and the ax are now pressed into the service, and 
made to perform their all-important part in the perfecting of 
the work. The trunks are cut up into twelve feet lengths. 
The log chain is fastened upon one end of these, and the 
weary oxen are made to drag them to the place of execution. 
By the aid of levers and “ skids” these are piled up in 
pyramids, frequently ten feet high. When this slow and 
painfully toilsome process is completed, a favorable wind is 
the opportunity for applying the torch. The numerous heaps 
are soon in a bright blaze, affording a scene of grandeur at 
night only inferior to the destruction of the lighter material 
of the “ slashing.” The lurid fires light up the whole heavens 
for miles around, giving an idea of the camp fires of an im- 
mense army. This work continues for days. Then the 


48 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


windows of heaven are opened, and the dying embers of the 
conflagration are slowly extinguished. The plow is next 
called upon to perform its important functions. Where the 
roots are lightest the ground is imperfectly broken up, and 
the more delicate crops are sown or planted in little patches. 
The potatoes are placed upon the unbroken soil, and covered 
over with the hoe. The product of these is truly astonishing 
in the yielding and congenial soil of northern Michigan. 
From planting to gathering the first crop, they are frequently 
left to struggle for growth, untended by the care of man. 
And yet the production is often at the rate of one hundred 
bushels to the acre, large, mealy, and of surpassing flavor. 
I have been in twenty-five States of the Union, but never 
saw such fine potatoes as are grown here in this wilderness. 
God is good in some way to all manner of people. 

And so, from year to year, the new settler adds to his 
acres, until whole States are wrought out of the waste places, 
and a sturdy race of honest and patriotic men grow up to 
counterbalance the effeminacy and wickedness of the old cities 
of the east. But for this, ruin and decay would have long 
since marked the gradual downfall of our great republic. 
There is to-day more of the leaven of national salvation, 
right here by the lonely shores of the mighty waters of Lake 
Michigan, than in all the borders of all the cities of the cor- 
rupt civilization of the older east. The wild extent of our 
country is the conservative influence that will save it from 
the fate of the ruined dynasties of the old world for ages yet 
to come. Poverty, oppression, and murderous discontent 
have, in the yet untrodden fields of the mighty west, a way 
to escape from enforced revolution, rapine, and bloodshed. 

A painful incident of pioneer life happened five years ago, 
right here in this immediate neighborhood. During a storm 
a huge tree had blown down near the cabin of a settler from 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 49 

Vermont. The next morning he took his saw, and accom- 
panied by a little son and daughter, aged respectively 
six and four years, went forth to cut up the tree, which 
had fallen upon his crop in the edge of the clearing. He 
had sawed, through the first cut, about twelve feet from the 
large space of earth that had been carried up with the roots, 
when the stump, relieved from the great weight of the body 
of the tree, sprang back and resumed its original position. 
The settler worked on for awhile, and then returned to his 
cabin for his oxen. His wife met him with a careless inquiry 
about the children. The man replied that he thought that 
they had become tired of playing and had returned home. 
The mother concluded that they had strayed out into the 
dense wood, in search of flowers and berries, and pursuit at 
once commenced. This was kept up for hours, when finally 
the alarmed parents instituted a closer search by the fallen 
tree. A loud shriek from the distracted mother brought the 
father to the roots of the tree. And there they saw horrible 
evidence of the fate of the little ones — the edge of a small 
apron protruding from under the re-settled stump. 

The children had made a little play-house of moss and 
chips in the cavity caused by the uprooting of the tree, and 
when it sprang back had been crushed to death. The parents 
still reside here, and the mother has carefully preserved the 
little torn apron of her baby daughter, and the little straw 
hat of her darling boy, together with the withered grasses 
and wild flowers that had decked their play-house, as painful 
mementoes of their sad fate. I have seen them, and am not 
ashamed to admit that I paid unto these records of a painful 
tragedy the tribute of sacred tears. 

There is a wonderful fact connected with the Michigan 
side of the great lake, that points to the wisdom and good- 
ness of the Creator, in a manner so unmistakable, that it 


50 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


cannot fail to strengthen the Christian in his faith, and to 
weaken the skepticism of the honest and intelligent doubter. 

All along the eastern shore, for over two miles inland, are 
steep and high sand-hills, studded with a stunted growth 
of pine and hemlock. These hills have been thrown up 
through the centuries by the action of the winds and waves 
of the lake, and being of more recent formation, accounts for 
the weak fertility of the soil, and the consequent dwarfage of 
the forests. 

It would be a work of utter impossibility to get the valuable 
timber that grows beyond this belt, to the waters of the lake, 
over the sand-hills intervening, without an expenditure so enor- 
mous as to forbid the attempt for ages yet to come, or until 
lumber commanded a price difficult now to contemplate as 
among the possibilities of the future. Under this state of 
facts, all the vast region of which I have been writing would 
be useless in its timber for the necessities of the civilized 
centres in which it now finds so great and so remunerative a 
market. 

And now I will show wherein the hand of God is seen, in 
the provision which so happily annuls the difficulty I have 
described. 

At average intervals of about fifteen miles, all along our 
shore of the lake, little inlets enter the mainland, generally 
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards long, and 
from fifteen to thirty yards wide. Then their waters swell 
out into beautiful little lakes, which run up for miles into the 
valuable timber lands, and the most cunning engineer could 
not have designed these more skillfully for the great need to 
which they minister. These subordinate lakes are about six 
miles in length, by two miles wide. And all around the upper 
rim of this natural basin, large steam saw mills have been 
erected, the fuel for which costs nothing, and the lumber they 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


51 


yearly turn out is bewilderingly astonishing. An inlet, run- 
ning from ten to twenty miles still farther into the interior 
of the pine forests, empties into the head of these smaller 
lakes I have attempted to deseribe. So you see that when 
the timber in the immediate vicinity of the mills is used up, 
a seemingly inexhaustible supply remains to be felled and 
floated down from a long distance inland. 

The entrance from the great lake is dredged out to the 
proper depth, wharfed up on either side, and large schooners 
are thus enabled to enter, load, and depart to distant markets 
with their cargoes. 

Additional force is given to the argument that Divine 
intelligence designed these marvelous conveniences for the 
benefit of man, by this other fact which I now introduce for 
the thoughtful meditation of both Christian believer and 
skeptical materialist. 

On the opposite side, or Wisconsin shore, one hundred 
miles across from us, none of these little interior lakes exist * 
And why? Because there are no forests of merchantable 
timber there that requires them for a highway by which to be 
floated to mill and market ! Reader, are not these links 
welded into the perfect chain ? 

While I think of it, it will be well here to introduce an 
explanation that should have come in some distance back in 
my careless and irregular description. 

Some reader will think it strange, if my story of the 
general fertility of Northern Michigan be of a verity, and 
not of idle exaggeration, why is it that the land is not more 
rapidly taken up by emigration, and devoted to the general 
purposes of agriculture ? Why does it continue almost an 
unbroken wilderness, while the colder and more inhospitable 
climates of Wisconsin and Minnesota are sought by the great 
army of emigrants ? 


52 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


The point is very properly made, but very easily removed. 
Of course the agricultural seeker of a home in a wild coun- 
try is very limited in his means, and depends upon imme- 
diate crops for sustenance. It takes a term of years in 
Northern Michigan to cut down, burn, and get a forty-acre 
tract ready for production, and the cost per acre is about 
$30, exclusive of the original purchase. And then those 
wretched stumps last a generation, and are most difficult to 
work among, either in preparing for or gathering in a 
crop. 

But the emigrant can cross the lake into the prairie states, 
enter government land as a homestead, or other lands at a 
light purchase, and clap the plow in on the very day he 
becomes the owner. Can’t you “ see it ? ” 

To give my readers who are interested in things apper- 
taining to my new home a compact idea of its wild isolation, 
I cannot do better than to state that it takes twenty-six 
counties to make up the population necessary for our Con- 
gressional District, covering an extent of territory much 
larger than the entire State of New Jersey, running clear 
up to Lake Superior, and bending around in a tier of north- 
western counties to the Wisconsin line. Thank Heaven, it 
prevents any candidate from “ stumping ” it, or whiskying 
its wild red and white voters ! His term of two years would 
be out before he could get through the district, and the 
“ back pay ” would be all stolen before his “ grab ” could 
come in. 

There still remains in our county nearly two thousand 
Indians, the remnant of the once numerous warlike tribes 
that held all the Northwest previous to the inroads of civili- 
zation. They live on a reservation of two townships of the 
most beautiful forest land in all Michigan. It is covered by 
a growth of immense trees, mainly beech and maple, free 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


53 


from underbrush ; and as one rides through it he cannot 
fail to become absorbed in contemplation of the magnifi- 
cent profusion of flowers and foliage, so grandly displayed 
throughout this sylvan solitude. 

These Indians are as good and peaceful citizens as are the 
white settlers, who are beginning to crowd so closely upon 
them. They have their little clearings for potatoes and corn, 
but hunting is the main object of their existence. They 
adhere to their old, original language, though the most of 
them have mastered enough of the English for the ordi- 
nary purposes of intercourse with the whites. The State 
prohibits, under severe penalties, the sale of whisky to these 
people, and to this fact alone is due their quiet and peaceable 
demeanor. 

But woman will be woman, under all the dispensations 
of fate and circumstance; and dress without comfort, and 
adornment without taste, mark the sex wherever a myste- 
rious providence suffers them to exist. The squaws of our 
lake region spend every dime they can get for three-cent 
finger rings, cheap, flashy ribbons, false hair not half so 
beautiful as their own, and hump the small of their backs 
as deformedly as do their Christian sisters of the East. In 
fact, I will dare the assertion that I have seen at least some 
red maidens here in the woods exhibit a disregard of taste 
in their attire equal to that of a New Jersey belle, in its 
monstrous departure from the true line of female develop- 
ment and shapely beauty. This may be doubted by most 
of my readers, but I stand ready to put up my money 
on it. 

With the relation of a single incident connected with the 
present life of these Indians, I close this very hastily and 
very carelessly written sketch of “ My New Home in North- 
ern Michigan.” 


54 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


The principal chief of the Ottawas is one of the largest 
and most powerfully formed men I ever looked “upon. His 
native name I have forgotten, but it is hard enough of pro- 
nunciation to strangle a Dutchman. He is designated among 
the white settlers as Louie General. This chief had a favorite 
pony of great speed, and his brother-in-law was the owner 
of a similar animal. Several trials had taken place between 
the two, but always with doubtful or unsatisfactory results. 
At last a day was fixed for a final contest, which the tribe 
attended in a body. These Indians are splendid riders, and 
racing is their favorite amusement. 

This time the race proved decisive. The horse of the 
chief won the victory by a very close distance. This fact, 
and the vociferous yells which greeted the result, aroused 
all the vindictive passions of the defeated Indian. Instantly 
leaping from his pony, he rushed toward the horse of his 
brother-in-law, drew a long knife, and plunged it into the 
bowels of the panting animal. 

There was a pyramidal log pile blazing close by. The 
chief gazed a moment upon his favorite, struggling in death, 
then with one bound he reached the offender, raised him 
in his powerful grasp at arms length above his head, and 
dashed him upon the burning pile ! The top log, being 
nearly burned through, broke asunder, and the victim dis- 
appeared in an instant within the cavernous furnace ! 

For this deed of horror, Louie General was tried, con- 
victed, and sentenced for five years to the State Prison at 
Jackson. 

He had been incarcerated but a short time, when a con- 
spiracy among the more desperate of the prisoners came to 
a head, in an attempt to overpower the guard and escape. 
This would have proved successful, but for the daring 
courage, and herculean strength of the imprisoned chief. 


MY NEW HOME IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


55 


He threw his huge proportions in the only avenue of escape, 
and knocked down every convict who attempted the passage. 
Assistance soon came, and the effort was frustrated, only two 
prisoners having succeeded in making their escape. 

Louie General was at once pardoned by the governor, and 
to-day is with his people. 


HOW THE “OLD SETTLER ” SETTLED MY 
POTATO BUGS. 


I KNEW him by his swinging stride and his long rifle, the 
moment he emerged from the old Indian trail into the 
clearing. 

It was the Old Settler. He came out from Northern 
Indiana twenty years before, as one of the first lumber camps 
formed in these wilds by the Chicago Saw Mill Company. 
He managed, at the end of two years’ service in the camps, 
to get forty acres of land for about the same number of dol- 
lars, put up a little log cabin with his own hands, cleared off 
ten acres, and settled down in contented independence. 

The honesty of this Old Settler would bear a heavy dis- 
count in any mart outside of Wall street. But there he 
would be sure of sympathetic and congenial natures. He is 
a Jay Gould, circumscribed in his genius by lack of material 
for extended operations. The first spring I came into the 
settlement, he sold me ten bushels of seed potatoes, at double 
the market price, every one of which was frozen to the hard- 
est possible solidity. When a week later I discovered this 
fact, and suggested that he make some sort of reparation, he 
indignantly remarked : 

“ Why, stranger, do you take me for a durn’d fool ! I’m a 
poor man. You wear store clothes and keep hosses, and they 
say hereabouts that you are lousy with greenbacks. But you 
musn’t go for to try to put on style among honest folks here 
in the woods. Pay you back that money ! Not if this indi- 


HOW THE OLD SETTLER SETTLED MY POTATO BUGS. 57 

vidual knows hisself. "Who can best afford to lose them 
Waters, me or you ? When I was up on the Manistee last 
winter, a logging I licked a feller about your size, with one 
hand tied behind me.” 

The logic of these remarks would not bear close Criticism,, 
but the huge fist which the speaker swung around, in rather 
careless proximity to my head, by way of emphasis, had a 
mollifying effect upon my anger. I assured him I was 
only joking. The Old Settler magnanimously accepted the 
apology, invited himself to dinner, borrowed three dollars to 
pay his taxes, and struck out again into the forest. And now 
he visits me regularly, and in the absence of all neighborly 
companionship, he is at times rather welcome than otherwise. 

When the snows had all melted last Spring, and had 
poured the last of their tributes into the treasury of the great 
lake, and the genial days came out from the shadow of the 
long, fierce winter, I set about my innocent agricultural 
labors. 

Albeit of an indolent organization, and a dreamer rather 
than a laborer in the great problem of life, still I find 
myself, in my new mode of existence, compelled to work in 
self-defense. There is neither store, church, nor tavern, nor 
any of the accessories of civilization within many miles of 
my lowly dwelling. The winds sigh mournfully through 
the forests ; day unto day and night unto night speaketh a 
voiceless language of the past, in the solemn loneliness of 
these grand old woods. The sounds of labor are few and far 
between, and seem but the muffled echoes of the general 
silence. 

To avoid the saddening thoughts of death and eternity,, 
which such surroundings force upon the meditations of one 
accustomed all his life to the remorseless din and struggles of 
great cities, I went to work like another Abel, who was a 

D 


58 HOW THE OLD SETTLER SETTLED MY POTATO BUGS. 

tiller of the ground long before the ornamental potato bug 
was mercifully invented. I prepared an acre for early rose, 
cut, planted, and covered six bushels thereon, and all with 
these soft hands of mine. The very first forenoon of this 
work satisfied me that I was the discoverer of a valuable 
acquisition to medical science. There is some secreted virtue 
in a Northern Michigan hoe handle, that raises blisters in a 
few minutes, as large as life, and twice as natural. 

Rapacious quack, I have patented the discovery. The 
subscriber is too smart a Jersey Yankee to make public “ a 
great blessing to mankind,” without the preliminary caution 
of securing the profits. 

Well, to make a short story long, my potatoes grew up out 
of the furrow, drank in the air and the sunshine, and I was 
happy in the consciousness of rewarded skill and industry. 
No fond mother ever so watched over the dawning beauty of 
her first-born, as did your servant, beloved reader, over the 
developed glory of them Waters ! Alas, for the cruel sequel ! 
One day 

The bugs they came down, like wolves on the fold, 

And eat of my vines all their stomachs could hold ! 

It was at this fatal juncture that my evil genius, the Old 
Settler, emerged from the forest, and came upon the scene, 
as related at the opening of this history. Coming up to 
where I was sitting moodily upon a stump, feeling like 
Marias at the ruins of Carthage, only more so, his keen eye 
took in the situation at once, but his diplomatic caution 
suggested the disguise of an inquiry : 

“ What mout the matter be ?” 

“ Look at what was, only yesterday, the most beautiful 
potato patch in the settlement. In forty-eight hours from 
this it will be a sandy, herbless waste.” 


HOW THE OLD SETTLER SETTLED MY POTATO BUGS. 59 

“ Bugs, eh?” 

“Yes” 

“ Is that all ? Why, stranger, you can kill every blasted 
critter of ’em, sure as shootin’, before 9 o’clock to-morrow 
mornin’.” 

In the hour of despondency, the feeblest support gives 
hope a ray of confidence. I grasped with gratitude the hand 
of the Old Settler, and eagerly inquired how the work of 
extermination could be effected. 

“ Mister,” said he, “ you’re a new beginner, and don’t 
know much about farmin’. But you’re a clever feller, as far 
as I’ve seen, and I’m willin’ to give you my ’sperience. Go 
and get a bushel of fresh lime, what’s just outen the kiln. 
Pound it up as fine as powder, and early in the mornin’, 
when the dew is thick, dust them are vines all over, and by 
noon there won’t be a durn’d live ’tater bug in the hull 
patch.” 

With a gush of feeling that uprooted all my previous pre- 
judices, and flushed tearfully in my eyes, I again grasped the 
hand of the kindly old man, with a mental oath of eternal 
friendship; hitched up “ Prince,” and drove like Jehu, the 
son of none, to Stony Creek, eight miles distant ; got back at 
dusk with the lime, and worked and sweated all night in 
reducing it to powder. I stole out exultingly in the early 
grey of the morning, and gave a magnificent dusting to the 
whole patch ! 

My triumph was of the kind supposed to be loved by the 
gods, for it died young. Even as I waited and watched, the 
dust began to seethe and bubble, and a smoke steamed up, 
and the vines squirmed, and writhed, and soon lay prone 
upon the ground ! 

“ Fine arternoon,” exclaimed the Old Settler, as he strode 
into the patch where I was contemplating the ruins. 


60 HOW THE OLD SETTLER SETTLED MY POTATO BUGS. 

I looked in the man’s face sternly for a full minute, expect- 
ing to see him quail in the consciousness of guilt, in full 
sight of the injury he had done me. But the steel blue of 
his eye remained unclouded with shame, as he observed, in a 
satisfied tone : 

“ Well, stranger, you see the lime has cleared the kitchen. 
Bugs all dead, I b’lieve ?” 

Yes,” I bitterly rejoined, “ and vines , too. Did you know 
it would kill the vines ?” 

“ Why, of course I know’d it would kill the ’taters. Any 
durn’d fool, who had the sense he was born with, oughter to 
know that! But then look at the satisfaction of carcumwentin > 
the cussed bugs!” 

I here tightened my grasp upon the hoe handle, set my 
teeth hard, and breathed determinedly. But a spirit of 
Christian forbearance came in time to save me from the con- 
templated violence. I thought of the feller he had licked 
up on the Manistee, and grinned horribly a ghastly smile as 
I lifted my eight-dollar beaver from my head, and handed it 
to the Old Settler with a bow, and the exclamation of — 

“ Take my hat !” 

To my surprise and consternation, the matter-of-fact nature 
of my tormenter seemed to take the offer as of good faith, 
and as a reward for acceptable service rendered ! He stretched 
forth his long muscular arm, and before I could withdraw 
the offer, he had it safely in hand. He then lifted his own 
rimless, greasy, dilapidated “ slouch” from his head, tucked 
it under his arm, put my “ pride of New York” on his 
shaggy nob, and looked happy. He soon took it off, examined 
with pride and satisfaction the beautiful finish of the interior, 
replaced it upon his head, and spoke thus : 

“ Thank you, mister. This is the fust present I’ve had 
this many a year. Some of the folks here in the woods 


HOW THE OLD SETTLER SETTLED MY POTATO BUGS. 61 


think you are a man of too big feelin’ for sich as us. I’ve 
always found you to be a clever feller, without a bit of the 
gentleman about you, and Fll stand up for you while there’s 
a hemlock tree on Point Sable, or a ten-pound pickerel in 
Bear Lake.” 

Thus leaving his sense of gratitude to console me in his 
absence, the Old Settler struck out toward the forest, in 
the .direction of his cabin. On reaching the top of the hill, 
he halted for a moment, again removed my new hat, again 
scrutinized the beautiful interior, smoothed the body affec- 
tionately with his coat sleeve, replaced it, and was soon lost 
to sight, and not particularly dear to memory. 


THE FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY 
SCHOOL. 


H E was such a very little fellow, and so delicate in ap- 
pearance, and so bright, and kind, and gentle, and 
loving, that I first wondered how it happened he was a boy. 
As this conundium was insoluble in human philosophy, I 
next spurred my ethical curiosity into another phase of 
unprofitable speculation. 

“ Why was a man child — so etlierial — so good — so almost 
angelic in soul and body — permitted to be born in a cold, 
inhospitable wilderness, where mortals of the coarsest and 
the hardiest texture, who had never known luxury, and in 
consequence felt not its privation, alone could live without 
bemoaning a fate only preferable to exile, or involuntary 
imprisonment ? ” 

This surmise, after turning it around into all moral aspects 
possible to an acute imagination, also eluded a satisfactory 
verdict, and was dismissed on its own recognizance. 

The plain, hard fact alone remained, clearly defined upon 
the background of impertinent causality, that little Johnny 
Errickson, first son to a rude Norwegian emigrant, had been 
born, five years before my advent in that region, in a primi- 
tive little log cabin, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, 
and that an old Ottawa squaw did the midwife honors on 
the occasion. 

And Andrew Errickson, the father, was killed on the 
morning of that same day by the vengeful limb of a patri- 


FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 63 

archal pine tree he had mercilessly hewn down for the maw 
of a saw mill. It was believed by the few white settlers of 
the vicinage, that the sad fate of the father had hastened the 
advent of the infant some weeks in advance of the natural 
law in such cases made and provided. The shock to the 
mother, so suddenly and tragically bereft of her young 
husband, and left alone among strangers in a strange land, 
is supposed to have forestalled the event in manner as here 
written. 

Be that as it may, the hard fact remains, that the dead 
father and the new born nurseling lay upon the same bed 
on the morning of the funeral. 

That little Johnny was thus hastened into this breathing 
world, may account for that nervous delicacy of organization 
to which I have referred, and the manifestation of which 
wrought within me such a painful and ever pressing interest 
in the child, when I had learned the simple facts of his brief 
being. 

When we organized our little Sunday School here in the 
forest, on a bright Sabbath in June, 1872, Johnny and his 
mother made two of the nine human creatures in attendance. 
The wicked writer of this was made superintendent, and his 
Christian wife was the only teacher, a position which she 
holds unaided to this day, January 1st, 1874. 

Johnny was but five years of age; and I never looked 
upon those great blue eyes, so full of strange, wondering 
inquiry, and that thin, pale face, in which the dark veins 
were so plainly visible in all their tracery, but the conviction 
came uppermost that his little life would be but a brief 
exhalation of its morning. 

Of course the child could not read when we opened our 
little Sunday School by the waters of the lonely lake, in the 
faith that it would in time become as the voice of one crying 


64 FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

in the wilderness, “Prepare ye the way — make His paths 
straight ! ” 

But he became a scholar, walking a long way through 
the thick woods every Sabbath, never failing to be present 
until — he died! 

It was wonderful to see how intensely the little fellow 
devoted himself to his letters, and how soon he mastered 
them. I really don’t think it was over eight weeks before 
the pale, sad-faced child recited to us, scarcely missing a 
word, the whole of the Lord’s Prayer. And after that a 
Sabbath never passed in which he did not give us a half 
dozen verses from some portion of the Scriptures. And 
how his little face beamed with joy, and happiness, and all 
that sort of thing, when our commendation rewarded his 
proficiency ! 

The widow and her son were very poor, and Johnny 
would pick berries in their season, and carry them to the 
lumber camps for sale, and then run back through the forest 
path, as fast as his little legs could carry him, to give his 
mother the few pennies he had thus gained. 

I remember one Saturday afternoon in the early summer 
of last year, that Johnny went down to the saw mill at the 
Point, with his little basket filled with wild strawberries, 
to dispose of to tjie hands. As he was about to return, the 
proprietor, a coarse, bluff, but kindly man, chanced to come 
out of his cabin, and meeting the lad, accosted him thus : 

“ Hello, Johnny, you’re the very boy I wanted to see ! 
I expect some company to-morrow, and I want you to get 
up early in the morning and pick me five quarts of straw- 
berries. I believe you’re an honest little chap, and I’ve got 
a new silver quarter of a dollar in my pocket, and I will 
pay you right now in advance.” 

The eyes of the child glistened with delight, and in his 


FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 65 


excitement he threw down his basket, as though it encum- 
bered his movements, and ran with all his might toward 
the outstretched hand that held the shining treasure. 

It was doubtless the first silver coin the poor boy had 
ever seen, but it had hardly touched his eager palm, when 
the sunshine went out of his face, and his ^yes were suffused 
with tears. The flash of a sudden thought had wrought the 
change. 

He held out the bright temptation toward the hand from 
which he had just received it, and said: 

“No, sir; I cannot pick berries to-morrow. It is Sun- 
day.” 

“ Why, Johnny,” exclaimed the mill owner, with a laugh, 
(for no one had respected the Sabbath in those parts, up to 
the time of our little school,) when did you get this foolish 
thing in your noddle ? Last summer you used to pick us 
berries every Sunday, and nobody ever thought anything 
of it.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the child, “but I didn’t know it was 
wicked then. But I go to Sunday School now, and can read, 
and the Bible says we must remember the Sabbath day to 
keep it holy.” 

“ Nonsense,” said the man, in a slightly impatient tone, 
“ don’t let those folks who have come in here from the East 
put such stuff in your head. Johnny, your mother wants 
this money bad enough, and it is your duty to earn it for 
her, Sunday or no Sunday.” 

A hesitating look began to creep into the child’s face, for 
the man refused to receive the money back. 

The boy was thinking of his mother. The contest went 
on. 

The struggle seemed unequal, with hard poverty and a 


66 FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

little child on one side, and what appeared to his young eyes 
as wealth on the other. 

“ Not by power , nor by mighty but by my spirit, saith the 
Lord!” The hesitation of the child was but momentary. 
He dropped the coin in the sand at the feet of the tempter, 
recovered his basket, and struck into the dark woods on his 
homeward path as fast as his little legs could carry him. 

He seemed to feel the danger of looking back. Reader, take 
warning ! 

And this was the first visible victory of our little Sunday 
School in the wilderness. Let strong Christian men and 
women never forget the day of small things. 

I think I told you in the beginning that this child must 
die — that his brief dark morning would be his all of life. 
It is the coarse and the brutal who live out all their days. 
This is true. And yet, perhaps, it were better had I left it 
unwritten here. 

In the early September the dreaded scarlet fever, so fatal 
in our high latitude, pushed its annual visitation into our 
secluded settlement. JSTearly all who were smitten died. 

It was Sunday, and one of those soft and beautiful days 
that are only in the fullness of their glory in the solitude 
of the untrodden places. Johnny Errickson came not to 
school. 

And then I looked at the little bench on which the child 
used to sit, his pale lips moving over his lesson with a 
nervous intentness painful to behold, and I knew that his 
place would know him no more forever. 

When the night came, and the voice of the whip-poor-will 
was alone heard in the silence, I started for the cabin of the 
widow, which was about two miles distant. 

I found three or four hard featured men, and about the 
same number of uncouth but tearful women present when I 


FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 67 

lifted the wooden latch and entered. The little sufferer lay 
tossing upon the bed, starting occasionally from a half doze, 
and throwing his arms about wildly. His face was scarlet, 
and swollen. His mother sat by the bedside, her face buried 
in the clothes. She was silent, but her heart-beats were 
audible to those nearest her. 

At last the child feebly raised his head from the pillow, 
and said: 

“ Mother, it is all dark. Let me take hold of your 
hand.” 

The widow took the child’s hand in her own, and the hot 
tears dropped, one by one, upon it. 

“ Mother, what makes you cry so,” said the child, hoarsely. 
“ God won’t let me die, mother ; I am so little.” 

He laid down his head again, and for a few moments was 
so still that we thought he had gone to sleep. 

Suddenly he opened his eyes, a glad smile was upon his 
face, he clapped his thin hands two or three times together, 
and exclaimed : 

“ O, mother, it is all light again now ! And see ! the 
room is full of dear little children, all dressed in white ! 
We will have a bigger Sunday School now, mother — O! ever 
so much bigger — won’t we, mother ?” 

Tears rolled down the cheeks of every man present, and 
the suppressed sobs of women filled the room. 

The sufferer was again silent, but I knew by his shortened 
breathings that Death had entered the room, and that his 
skeleton hand was outstretched for the child’s life. 

Five minutes had elapsed, and the boy still remained 
motionless. His breathing became more and more feeble. 

All at once he turned over on his side toward his mother, 
opened his eyes slowly, and with an effort. Then, with a 
faint smile upon his face, he whispered : 


68 FIRST DEATH IN OUR LITTLE SUNDAY SCHOOL. 

“ Mother, your little boy’s work is all done, and now he 
is tired, and will go to sleep.” 

I stepped softly to the bedside, and bent over the boy. 
His eyes were still open, but the life had left them. The 
spirit of little Johnny Errickson had passed over the dark 
river into the beautiful land of everlasting love. 

I turned to the mother, and said : 

“ It is best as it is. J ohnny is dead.” 

A wail of agony went out of the heart of the mother, as 
she knelt down and kissed the brow of the dead. 

He was her only son, and she was a widow. 

Then came a voice that was softer than silence, and said, 
u Suffer little children to come unto me , for of such is the King- 
dom of Heaven .” 


DARWINISM VINDICATED AND 
CONFIRMED. 


I HAVE always thought, since my giant intellect became 
more gianter by study and observation, that the Bible 
account of the creation of man was too absurd a tradition 
for any mind that had outgrown childish credulity, and laid 
aside its infantile books about Jack and his Bean-pole, and 
kindred stories, with which our good grandmothers used to 
win us to their feet, in the almost forgotten winter evenings 
of the long ago. But in the absence of any counter- 
convincing theory, emanating from a philosophic mind of 
unquestioned acuteness, and of moral respectability, I was 
compelled to keep ignoble silence upon a momentous subject 
that I could not credit, and yet unable to controvert. 

The conscientious reader — he who desires to believe right 
upon a great religious question, and yet has no philosophic 
evidence to point the way from doubt into belief — can alone 
appreciate the joy that kindled its radiant delight in my 
soul, when Charles Darwin appeared with his monkey before 
the footlights, and holding it up by its prehensile tail, 
exclaimed to his audience : 

“ Behold one of your intermediate ancestors ! ! ! ” 

To say that I was delighted beyond all facility of expres- 
sion, at this happy solution of the question that had so 
troubled me for years, is but a feeble way of announcing the 
satisfaction I derived in thus being able to claim the cunning 
little creature of the primitive village show tent as a man 
and a brother ! 


70 


DARWINISM VINDICATED AND CONFIRMED. 


Pecuniary considerations, of too delicate a nature for more 
explicit public explanation, alone restrained me from the 
immediate purchase of the coveted volumes in which the 
monkey idea was so fully and so satisfactorily elucidated. 

But I was so fortunate one day, during an idle visit to 
that pernicious school of theological superstition, the “Young 
Men’s Christian Association,” of the city of Trenton, to pick 
up a newspaper, and therein I read an extract from the Book 
of Darwin, in which it was shown that man was developed, 
through ages of progression, from a rather shaky sort of 
jelly at the bottom of the ocean ! This watering of our 
common stock proved the genius which conceived the idea, 
and has ever since found industrious imitators, of which the 
late James Fisk, and his worthy living executor, Jay Gould, 
are the happiest exemplars. 

Finding that the water cure had drowned out the Bible 
fallacy of the “ dust of the earth,” in regard to the “ origin 
of our species,” I had a foundation upon which to rest my 
own lever, for the further overturning of the delusion of the 
pious, and misplaced faith of the weak and credulous. 

And so I set my own active and investigating mjnd to the 
task of discovering cumulative testimony to brace, with addi- 
tional strength, the theory that seemed so firmly based upon 
the great original principle of jelly. 

The first thought that came to my assistance was one that 
might have escaped ordinary observation, because it was 
right under the nose, instead of being reachless, under the 
great depths of the ocean. The philosophic Darwinian, as a 
rule, is apt to despise the surface, and boldly dives to where 
there is neither seeing nor hearing. The dullest delver can 
grasp superficial facts. The real Darwinian brushes such 
aside, and with his long oyster tongs, dredges up the jelly 
from the bottom. I am but a freshmen of the class, a 


DARWINISM VINDICATED AND CONFIRMED. 


71 


neophyte for the honors, and this is why I stood at the vesti- 
bule of science, and picked up the crumbs that had been 
swept out, unrecognized, from the Darwinian table. 

But to the thought from which I am beginning to stray. 

In one of the instructive books of Charles Dickens, there 
is a person named Jellyby. How came that person so named, 
and what is the inference of her ancestry ? The intelligent 
reader at once anticipates the point. The original progenitor 
of the Jelly bys was, in all probability, the first of the human 
species ! Developed from a jelly — what more natural than 
that he should name himself after the element of his origin ? 
This deduction is irresistible — as much so, let me diffidently 
add, as any drawn by the great mind of which I am only a 
disciple. 

In further pursuance of this logical train of reasoning, I 
remembered that Shakspeare, who comprehended every phase 
of human nature, describes one of his characters as almost 

“ Distilled to jelly by the act of fear.” 

This proves that the developed man was so frightened that 
he was almost dissolved back to his original elements ! 

And again — Why, when people become emaciated and 
weakened by dangerous illness, is jelly given to them as food 
appropriate to such feebleness ? Because it is drawing from 
the fount of life to renew and strengthen the decline of that life ! 

These few incidents must suffice for the special point of 
illustration in view. Space, and not lack of material, demands 
this brevity. And now for the positive and tangible facts 
that settle the question beyond controversy or criticism. 

Man stands with one foot upon the bottom of the ocean, 
and the other upon the surface of the earth, as developed 
from a jelly to a human being. Now mark how, by easy 
stages, the wonderful transition was effected. 


72 


DAKWINISM VINDICATED AND CONFIKMED. 


We will assume that the first stage was from a jelly to a 
clam. Hence the origin of the word clamorous , when we 
become impatient for a result. Then the jelly-clam, begin- 
ning to get the hang of the thing by a dimly developed 
instinct, or mind, took a more lively stride, and clamed its 
way into a crab, thus advancing towards its perfect state, as 
a creature that can live both upon the water and the land. 
In support of this changed state in the progress of develop- 
ment, I need only adduce the fact, that in the language 
handed down to us from the remotest antiquity, a man with a 
contradictory nature is said to be at times a “ little crabbed ! ” 

And now the jelly-clam-crab takes a rather wider depart- 
ure, according to his increased strength and intelligence, 
crawls forth upon the land, and suns himself as an alligator ! • 
Hence it is that the proud son of Kentucky, impelled by an 
instinct without scientific knowledge, proclaims himself, 
“ half horse and half alligator ! ” 

But it is unnecessary to prolong these facts by furnishing 
the additional links that connect man with his creator, the 
gelatinous substance that oozes from the bed of the ocean. 
He who denies the Darwinian truths I have already 
advanced, would not believe though one arose from the 
asylum. 

I am not disposed to rest here, however, for there is 
another field in the philosophy of development, that even 
the acute mind of the author of the “ Origin of the Species ” 
has failed to discern. I mean the origin of the celestial 
bodies. It may seem like ingratitude for a student to out- 
strip the master to whom he owes so much, but the claims of 
science are superior to the conventional requirements of 
friendship. 

u How came the stars of the firmament in their exalted 
places, and the sun as master of the celestial situation ? ” 


DARWINISM VINDICATED AND CONFIRMED. 


73 


I answer this seemingly triumphant conundrum, with a 
single word : 

Lightning-bugs ! ! 

In the beginning a sufficient number of these wonderful 
insects were commanded to develope, to attain the grand 
purpose contemplated by Nature. The first stage of pro- 
gress was those false meteors that occasionally blaze in the 
lower firmament, and disappear from our sight. When the 
ultimate object of their advancement toward perfection was 
achieved, behold the stars of heaven! One old he fellow, 
more ambitious than the rest, kept on developing until 
he became the sun ! 

And thus ends the harmonious perfection of the Darwinian 
theory, in a blaze of glory ! 

Comment is unnecessary. 

E 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


T HE incidents of this our true story, date back over a 
century ago. 

On the morning of the 13th of September, 1759, the flag 
of France waved above the ramparts of Quebec for the last 
time. The night previous, the army of the heroic Wolfe 
had scaled the fearful hights that buttressed the Plains of 
Abraham, and when the sun rose the astonished soldiers of 
Montcalm saw its rays flashing back from the bayonets of 
their enemies, whose compact lines were drawn up in battle 
array. The fierce conflict that ensued is now historical, and 
its events need not here be recapitulated. The treaty that 
followed ceded all Canada to the British crown. On the 29th 
of November, 1760, Detroit was surrendered to an English 
force. 

The numerous Indian tribes of the northwest were the 
allies of the French, and their hatred of the English was 
bloody and unrelenting. Pontiac, the great chief of the 
fierce Ottawas, of Lake Michigan, was a savage of wonderful 
endowments. Eloquent and sagacious in council, fearless in 
battle, and with an energy that never tired or faltered, he 
wielded an influence over all the other tribes, never equaled 
by an Indian warror, until his successor, Tecumseh, appeared 
upon the wild scene of action. 

Pontiac saw at once that the only safety of his people lay 
in the extermination of the encroaching English. Fired 
with this conviction, the fierce chief, without companionship 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


75 


of any kind, threaded the dark and pathless forest on a war 
mission to all the tribes bordering on Lakes Huron, Michi- 
gan, and Superior, and even penetrated the wilderness which 
held the Iroquois of the 'Onondaga region. Tireless, sleep- 
less, and inspired by a patriotic hate, that seemed to sustain 
him beyond natural strength, he finally succeeded in gather- 
ing a force of two thousand painted warriors, arrayed in a 
final effort to stay the encroachments of the white invaders. 

It was in the spring of 1763, that Pontiac and his follow- 
ers, accompanied by their wives and children, took the trail 
that led from Lake Huron to Detroit. On his arrival he 
encamped a short distance from the outwork of the fort, pro- 
fessing a peaceful mission while anxiously awaiting the 
appearance of his allies. As the different chiefs approached 
with their followers, they were stopped miles from the town 
by Pontiac, and constructed their villages beyond the reach 
of the knowledge of the garrison of Detroit. 

In the meantime, Pontiac and his warriors, to the number 
of fifty, with their women and children, were permitted to 
enter the towrn at intervals to hold conferences with the 
English officers, and to exchange the skins of animals for 
trinkets, tobacco, &c. 

The chief had a daughter which the French soldiers had 
named “ Lac la Belle,” or Belle of the Lake, because of her 
rare Indian grace and beauty. 

The garrison was commanded by Capt. Gladwyn, a young 
English officer of great gallantry and fine personal appear- 
ance. Lac la Belle soon came to love the English com- 
mander with all the wild fervor of her nature. Gladwyn, 
in return, manifested a strong interest in the dusky maiden 
of the woods, and the two were in each other's company as 
often as brief opportunity would permit. 

One day the Indian maiden entered the quarters of Glad- 


76 


A TALE OP THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


wyn with a pair of moccasins, made by her own hands, and 
beautifully ornamented, which she had wrought at his request, 
and presented them to him. She was silent, but her face was 
sad and sorrowful, and her eyes suffused with tears. He 
questioned her as to the cause of her unwonted manner, to 
which she only responded with sobs. Gladwyn, supposing it 
to be bat a momentary whim, or a loving, womanly caprice 
of melancholy that possessed her, tried to enliven her by 
a few jesting allusions to her unhappy state of feeling, when, 
some officers entering with reports, he led her to the door, 
stooped down and kissed her brow affectionately, bid her 
good bye, with the request that she would call again on the 
morrow. 

Lac la Belle tottered off a few steps, sat down upon the 
ground, buried her face in her hands, while her long, black 
tresses fell forward upon her knees. 

She remained in this position so long that the sentinel at 
the door began to think that there was something of more 
than common meaning in her despairing attitude and man- 
ner, and stepping inside informed his commander of the 
singular circumstance. Gladwyn walked to a loop-hole 
and observed her attentively for a few moments. He then 
dismissed the officers, and ordered the sentinel to bring the 
girl before him. The latter stepped toward her and laid his 
hand gently on her shoulder. 

“ The captain desires to speak to you,” said the soldier, in 
a kind and compassionate tone. 

Without a word, or a look of recognition to the sentinel, 
the girl arose to her feet and walked into the fort. Gladwyn 
met her at the entrance, and, taking her hand in his, led her 
to his private office. 

“ There is something unusual the matter with my forest 
bird to-day,” he exclaimed, as he placed his arms endearingly 


A TALE OF THE WAKS OF PONTIAC. 77 

around her neck, and kissed the tears from her eyes. “ Do 
you think that I have ceased to love you, because at times I 
seem neglectful, under the over-pressing cares and anxieties 
of my position ? The daughter of Pontiac should not grieve 
over childish fancies.” 

At the mention of her father's name a visible thrill 
passed through the frame of the maiden. Rising slowly to 
her feet, like one almost bereft of motion, she turned an 
agonizing look into the face of her lover, and tremulously 
wailed out : 

“ When the sun sinks down into the great water that lies 
beyond the mountains of the west, the white chief will take 
a canoe and go down the river to his brethren at Quebec ? 
I will send one of our people with him, past the Pottawatto- 
mie village, on the south of the encampment, and then he 
will be safe. I can say no more. Will the white chief heed 
the words of the weak Indian girl who would die for him, 
but cannot save him if he remains ? ” 

The conviction that a treacherous assault upon the place 
by Pontiac was matured and imminent flashed upon the mind 
of Gladwyn. He drew himself up to his full attitude, and 
a soldierly fire gleamed from his eye. 

“And it is the daughter of a great chief who would 
counsel the one who loves her to cowardly flee from a danger 
he should be the first to confront? Would Lac la Belle 
have me to leave my comrades to the slaughter and the tor- 
ture of savage cruelty and seek refuge in flight ? Girl, you 
are crazed with brooding over a terrible secret, in which my 
life is involved, and you know not the infamy you advise. I 
cannot ask you to betray your father. Go back to your 
people with your secret unbroken, and leave me to whatever 
fate craft and treachery may have prepared for myself, and 
the companions whose lives are entrusted to me.” 


78 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


Thus speaking, Gladwyn took the girl by the hand to lead 
her to the door. But the maiden released his clasp, and 
gazing into his eyes for an instant with an expression of 
tender and subdued pride, said : 

“ The white chief has spoken well, and the poor Indian 
girl is mad. But the Great Spirit has let a light into her 
heart, and there she can read what he would have her say. 
Listen !” 

“ When the sun is over the tops of the pines to-morrow, 
Pontiac will come into the fort with fifty chiefs, each carry- 
ing a gun that has been cut off so as to be easily hidden 
under their blankets. He will demand a council. At a 
signal every English officer will be killed, and the sentinels 
at the gate will be shot down by a number of our people who 
will be carelessly lying about on the grass at the entrance. 
Two hundred picked warriors will be crouched under the 
high banks of the river, who will then rush in, and every 
living white man, woman and child, is to be killed and 
scalped.” 

She paused a moment, and seemed to be painfully strug- 
gling with some internal conflict for further utterance. At 
last, she continued in a firmer voice, like one who has mas- 
tered her emotions : 

“ And now the Indian girl has told you all, and betrayed 
her father and her kindred to perhaps certain death. And 
why has she done this against those who are only trying to 
reclaim their own from the cruel race which has so wronged 
them ? She can only say it is because she loves the white 
chief, and can wish to die for his safety. She could see all 
his people perish, and joy in their torture. But she loves 
the white chief who has been so kind to her, and she cannot 
keep what she has revealed. The Great Spirit has spoken 
through the tongue of Lac la Belle.” 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


79 


Again she paused. But the tears were dried upon her 
-cheek, and her whole deportment was touchingly calm and 
womanly. She then took a step forward, clasped the hand of 
the commander in both her own, laid her head upon his 
bosom, and said in a soft, sad voice : 

“ The white chief is wise, and will be prepared for to- 
morrow, but will shed no blood. This is all the Indian girl 
asks of him she loves.” 

So saying, she gathered her embroidered blanket about her 
graceful form, left the fort, passed the wondering sentinel at 
the gate, entered a bark canoe, and soon joined her people on 
the Canadian side of the river. 

The morning sun rose slowly out of the eastern forest and 
shot his rays full upon the palisades of Detroit. The giant 
pines seemed transfixed in the pulseless atmosphere. All 
around was the sublimity of forest solitude. The garrison 
had been under arms all night, but as the daylight advanced 
into the unbroken silence, the soldiers had been dismissed for 
two hours of sleep. A few drowsy sentinels alone leaned 
motionless upon their muskets. 

About ten o’clock a fleet of canoes were seen to put out 
from the western shore of the river toward the fort. These 
were filled with squaws and children, who soon swarmed into 
the vacant space in the rear of the wooden defenses of De- 
troit. An hour later Pontiac and his confederate chiefs 
appeared upon the ground, closely wrapped in their blankets, 
but all seemingly unarmed. But their dark eyes shot forth 
the baleful fires of anticipated massacre, as they cast furtive 
glances of hate upon defenses and defenders. 

The chieftains reached the gate of the little town, which 
was at once thrown open for their admission. As the savages 
filed up the single street toward the council chamber, a sight 
met their view that startled even Pontiac from his usual 


80 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


stoicism, and a fierce exclamation, half strangled in its birth, 
escaped him. On either side of their advance stood an hun- 
dred stalwart soldiers of England, with bayoneted guns in 
their hands, and pistols in their belts ! 

Pontiac saw at a glance that his plot was either suspected 
or betrayed. On entering the council chamber with his fol- 
lowers, he sat sullenly down upon the ground, in evident 
doubt and perplexity. At length he arose, and with a fierce 
look at Gladwyn, enquired : 

“ Did my white brother suspect the truth of Pontiac and 
his people that he thus receives them as enemies ? When 
was the wampum of amity broken between us ? When did 
an Ottawa speak with forked tongue, or draw the tomahawk 
in a council of peace ?” 

“ My young men/’ responded Gladwyn, with a sarcastic 
smile, “ are only receiving their warrior friends after the 
custom of the English. Our king would be angry with his 
servants if they neglected such honors when so great a chief 
as Pontiac was a guest under his flag.” 

The eye of the baffled savage gleamed like that of a rattle- 
snake, as he turned from the face of Gladwyn, slowly around 
upon the assembled officers of the fort. Once he seemed in 
the act of giving the signal, but on the instant the rattle of 
musketry without, and the deep alarm roll of the drum, 
dispelled what little hope he had of taking his enemy una- 
wares. The council soon broke up without further incident, 
and the Indians at once departed to their own encampments 
on the farther side of the river. 

A week had now elapsed since the events we have just 
narrated, and not a single savage had attempted to enter the 
fort, or hold parley with its defenders. Their hunting parties 
could be seen leaving the Ottawa village every morning, 
returning in the evening with canoes laden with venison, but 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


81 


no demonstration of either friendship or hostility broke in 
upon the monotony of garrison life. 

But on the morning of the eighth day a canoe, in which 
was seated a single warrior, was seen by a sentinel to put out 
from the opposite shore of the river, directly toward the fort. 
There was a strong, skillful hand at the paddle, and on the 
the light craft came with a speed that excited the admiration 
of the half civilized hunters who made a part of the garrison, 
and who had crowded to the palisades the moment the sen- 
tinel had announced the coming of the canoe. 

“ I’ll bet my rifle agin an old chaw of tobacker,” exclaimed 
a long, gaunt,* frowsy-headed trapper from the head of Lake 
Michigan, who had come down but the day before with a 
canoe load of peltries to trade at the fort, “ that yonder big 
red devil is one of them bloody Ojibwas from Huron. There 
aint a Chippewa, nor a Wyandot, nor a skulking wolf of a 
Mingo of the Great Lake, who can put a boat through a head 
wind, on a straight line, like that sarpent is a doing it.” 

The savage had now approached near the shore, and the 
trapper, with hand shading his eyes, was attentively scrutin- 
izing his appearance. Whatever the suspicions of the latter 
might have been when the Indian was first seen approaching, 
closer investigation seemed entirely to confirm them. 

“ May I be roasted on hemlock logs by Ottawa squaws,” 
he suddenly broke forth, “ef that red nigger haint got a 
white gal’s hair at his belt.” 

And without further words he raised his fatal rifle to his 
shoulder. Another second and the Indian, who had reached 
the shore, and was about pulling his boat up on the sandy 
slope, would have received a leaden passport to the happy 
hunting ground. But just then a strong arm seized the 
trapper by his long matted locks, and hurled him backward 
upon the ground. His rifle was discharged as he was falling, 


82 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


and the contents passed harmlessly into the air. It was 
Gladwyn who had thus opportunely arrived, and saved the 
life of the intended victim. 

“ Take that chattering idiot to the fort,” he exclaimed, 
“ and chain him to a picket until we can deal with him as his 
offense demands. Such fools are the cause of nearly all the 
blood that is spilled in these wars, and must be taught the 
rules of Christian warfare.” 

The discomfited trapper was led off by a file of soldiers, 
but as he went he turned his face to Gladwyn and said : 

“ Cap’in, mayhap you’ll see afore you’re much older that 
Ingins will be Ingins, and your ‘ Christian warfare’ aint 
’zackly the medicine to cure their complaint. When you’ve 
lived in these here woods as long as I have, and larned more 
of the ways of the red varmints, p’raps you’ll git your eye 
teeth cut, and p’raps you won’t. At any rate, I know I’m 
right, and will try the same thing over agin on the first 
durn’d redskin that comes within reach of my rifle, wearing 
a white gal’s scalp. So, Cap’in, ef that aint your style, you 
mout as well shoot me right here.” 

In the meantime the Indian, who was evidently unarmed, 
had pushed his boat hastily back into the water on the report 
of the rifle, and then turned to reconnoitre. Apparently 
satisfied that the demonstration was not intended for him, he 
again beached his canoe, and wrapping his blanket around 
him so as to hide the hideous trophy that had so enraged the 
trapper, strode up to the gate of the fort. 

He was admitted by the commander in person, and at once 
proceeded to announce his mission. 

“ Pontiac wants the Englishman, with as many of his 
young men as he chooses to bring with him, to come over at 
once to the Ottawa village to a council.” 

“And why,” rejoined Gladwyn, “ does my brother make 


A TALE OF THE WAKS OF PONTIAC. 


83 


such a request now for the first time ? He has always here- 
tofore came with his warriors to the fort, when he wished a 
talk with his English friends. Has he not been suffered to 
depart in peace as he came, and with many presents from his 
white father, the King ?” 

“ Pontiac is a mighty chief, and his braves are of many 
tribes, and as numerous as the pigeons that come from the 
south when the leaves are reddened by the frost and the beach 
nuts fall to the ground. The messenger has but to deliver 
his words, and has no right to know their meaning. When 
the sun begins to turn the shadows of the hemlocks toward 
the north, Wawatam will return to him who sent him.” 

So saying the huge savage sat down upon the ground, lit 
his pipe, and refused all further conversation. Nor would he 
partake of the hospitality freely tendered him by officers and 
soldiers. He continued to smoke in calm indifference to his 
surroundings, and never once returned the look of the curious 
idlers who had gathered around him. He wore the elk skin 
moccasin of the Ojibwas, the fiercest and bloodiest of all the 
savages of the Great Lakes. 

The trapper before mentioned was fastened with a dog 
chain to a post within the fort, but the door was open so that 
he could look out upon the scene in front. The bearer of 
Pontiac’s message sat about fifty yards distant, and upon him 
the prisoner stared with a look of perplexed uncertainty. At 
last he said to the sentinel : 

“See here, red coat, just send one of your fellers over to 
that Ingin, and see if the little finger of his left hand aint 
mis’in.” 

The soldier was a kindly, good-natured man, and at once 
requested a comrade to stroll over and carelessly make the 
<desired investigation. The result confirmed what the trapper 
had suggested. With a stifled burst of rage he muttered : 


84 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


“ The Ojibwa thief and murderer ! He has the hair of my' 
brother and his little boy, in his wigwam by the outlet of the' 
Upper Huron ! And here am I, chained like a dog to his> 
kennel ! Damn that ‘ Christian warfare’ of an English Cap- 
tain ! A smooth-faced boy to teach old Joe Lukens what’s 
manners among redskins !” 

He shook his head a few moments in silence, and then 
resumed in a low voice, as if arguing against a resolve that 
he could hardly reconcile to his conscience. 

“No, no; the meddling youngster only did his duty, I 
suppose, accordin’ to his light. He came from a country over 
the seas, where the Quebec traders say there is nothin’ but 
cities, and ignorant people who live in houses, and where half 
the men, women and children starve, that a few of their 
breatheren may, accordin’ to missionary talk up to Michilli- 
mackinac, dress in purple and fine linen, and fare sumtooisly 
every day.” 

Again he paused. Again shook his head deprecatingly^ 
Again continued : 

“ I can’t bring myself to hate that boy of an English cap- 
tain, and to act accordingly when I git clear of this infarnal 
hole, where a woodman can scace git his breath. There was 
a day, when I first went out with the French of Montreal 
agin the cussed Iroquois of the Six Nations, when I would a 
twisted his neck off for sich as this, with as little compunc- 
tion as I would that of a wounded patridge. But I was 
young then, and I fear, as bloody minded as a wild Mingo, 
when the war-whoop sounded in the woods by Lake Ontary* 
But I ’spose the English lad only did his duty acordin’ to> 
his light, and that is the most the best of us kin do, acordin’ 
to the missionary doctern.” 

“ But,” he shouted, after a short pause, and springing to> 
the length of his iron tether, “ does the brat, in his braided 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


85 


soldier fixins, think this chain can hold me longer than I 
<choose to be dog-tied to his pine stick ? ” 

The sentinel here lowered his bayonet to the breast of the 
prisoner, and commanded silence. The trapper smiled, and 
sat down upon a low bench. 

“ Fergive me, comrade,” he exclaimed, “ I aint got nothin’ 
agin you, you are only doin’ acordin’ to your bringin’ up, and 
you would be shot acordin’ to ‘ Christian warfare,’ as the bby 
has it, if you showed you was a white man of the woods, and 
let me out of this badger’s den. Your ways aint as my 
ways, and I aint got anything agin you. But before the 
moon lights up the eastern forest, Joe Lukens will be either 
a dead lump of earth, or a free man of the wilderness. He 
would rather take his chances with the Ingins, than be 
chained with the white men of ‘ Christian warfare ! ’ ” 

As we have said before, Gladwyn was a brave and fearless 
soldier. He had his doubts about the intentions of the 
savages in thus demanding his presence in their midst, but 
rather than show doubt and timidity, he resolved to brave 
the consequences. As the hour indicated by the Ojibwa 
messenger approached, he selected three of his trustiest subor- 
dinates, and informed the savage that he was ready to go 
with him. 

The Indian arose without a word, led the way out of the 
gate, down to the river, and the party entered the boat. A 
few minutes brought them to the other side, where Pontiac, 
and fully a hundred painted chiefs and warriors stood ready 
to receive them. 

Ho greetings passed between the parties as they met, and 
a sullen hostility marked the expression in the face of each 
warrior. Even the squaws and children, who usually mani- 
fest delight at the gathering of a peaceful council between 


86 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


their people and the whites, now wore a look hungry for 
blood. 

Pontiac pointed to a log enclosure, covered with hemlock 
branches, and led the way. The line filed in and formed a 
circle, placing the Englishmen in the centre. Every action 
thus far had a look ominous of danger. A hundred, deep 
set, black, snaky eyes, shed a lurid light of hate upon the 
four unarmed men, but not a sound had yet been uttered. 

Pontiac raised his right hand, and his warriors at once 
squatted upon the ground. He then took one step forward 
from the circle, and looking for a moment steadily into the 
eyes of Gladwyn, whose face was paler than usual, but firm 
of expression, spoke as follows : 

“ The Chief of the Ottawas has but few words for the ear 
of the servant of the English King. But these shall be the 
words of truth. The tongue that , says one thing while the 
heart means another has been heard between us until we are 
ashamed of ourselves, and our eyes wander from the faces we 
are trying to deceive. Two thousand warriors are in the 
woods within sight of the smoke of Detroit. They have 
come to push the English from the place they have stolen. 
Deliver up the fort, go back to your own people, and the 
word of Pontiac will keep you and your young men from 
harm on the way. What has my brother to say ? ” 

Gladwyn stood silent a few moments, as one who is trying 
to reflect upon the bearing of an unexpected proposition. 
Then, in a low and distinct voice, and a calm and determined 
manner, he said : 

“ The great chief of the Ottawas is angry, and knows not 
what he asks. A bad spirit has got between my brother and 
the light, and would lead his people to destruction. They 
sold this land to the French, and received the price. The 
French King went to war with the English and was con- 


A TALE OF THE WAES OF PONTIAC. 


87 


quered. A great council was held, and a treaty of peace 
made, in which all this country claimed by the French, and 
held by them, was yielded up to my people, and — ” 

Here Pontiac, whose impatient rage at the claims of Glad- 
wyn had given him the look of a demon during these 
brief words, threw his blanket from his shoulders, and with 
a majesty of mien that seemed of inspiration, strode close in 
front of his adversary, and with arm outstretched toward 
heaven, and eye turned upon his followers, exclaimed : 

“ The tongue of the Englishman is the tongue of a liar, 
and should be torn out by the roots. There never was a 
time, since the Great Spirit made the world, and gave this 
heritage to his red children, in which our fathers have not 
been in the possession of the country, its woods, its lakes, 
and the great plains on which no trees grow. The French- 
man came, not many moons since, and the red man gave him 
lands on which to hunt, and waters in which to fish. They 
were his only at the will of our people. We had more than 
we needed, and the Great Manito of the red man told us to 
receive the white strangers as our brothers. The French 
King came, not with guns to command, but with tongue to 
request. The chain of friendship was held by a red hand at 
the north, and a white hand at the south. There was blood 
upon neither, and all the links were brightened in the rays 
of peace. The Englishman came, like a wolf among deer, 
and stirred up strife between us. He lied to our young men, 
and they went on the war path against their friends at 
Quebec. Then at last, the cunning Englishman came in 
and laid claim upon all the country, while its true owners 
were weakened like children, with the loss of blood.” 

Then turning full upon Gladwyn, the aroused savage 
rather yelled than spoke : 

“Yes, liar, with the double tongue, you came here as 


88 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


wanderers and beggars, and now you would remain as con- 
querors and owners ! ” 

Then wheeling slowly around upon the circle of his war- 
riors, he continued : 

“ And now what is to be done with these 'prisoners f ” 

In an instant each warrior leaped to his feet, a glittering 
knife gleamed in each hand, held far above the head, while 
the startled echoes of the forest responded from its depths to 
yells, such as no human ear ever heard from human throats, 
other than those of North American savages when aroused to 
a carnival of blood. 

The treacherous chief gazed a few moments proudly upon 
his ferocious followers, who intently watched his every mo- 
tion, expectant of the signal that was to let loose their fury 
upon the pale but unflinching prisoners. He raised his 
hand, and every Indian replaced his scalping-knife, and sank 
slowly down upon the ground. 

“ An Ottawa never sheds blood in his council lodge, unless 
his enemies are equal in numbers. The English captain 
will remain. His young men can go.” 

In an instant the savages gathered around the three officers 
who had accompanied their commander, and hurried them* 
out of the lodge. They had scarcely disappeared, leaving 
Pontiac and Gladwyn alone, when 

“ At once there rose so wild a yell, 

As if all the fiends from Heaven that fell, 

Had pealed the battle cry of hell ! ” 

The shrill screams of the squaws and children, mingled with 
the hoarse howls of the warriors, and the low groans of 
mortal agony that filled the lull in the yells of the demons, 
told but too plainly, to the wretched English captain, the 
fate of his companions. 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


89 


In a few moments a gigantic savage, with face smeared with 
blood and brains, entered the lodge. It was Wawatam, the 
Ojibwa envoy of the morning. Without a word, he ap- 
proached Pontiac, and throwing down a matted and bloody 
mass at the feet of the chief, departed as silently as he had ap- 
proached. 

Maddened beyond all bounds of moral restraint at the sight 
of the bleeding scalps of his faithful comrades of fort and 
field, Gladwyn turned to the Ottawa chief, with dauntless and 
defiant mien, and in measured and unfaltering tones, said : 

“The blood of the slain — murdered treacherously in a 
council of peace — be upon the head of Pontiac and his people. 
Henceforth I will hunt his warriors, his squaws, and his chil- 
dren, as wolves and their cubs are hunted, without mercy. 
On the waters, in the wilderness, wherever an Ottawa or his 
allies paddles a canoe or erects a lodge, will the bullets of the 
English seek victims, until none are left for the chase or the 
war path. I swear this before the murderer of my comrades !” 

Ere these words had hardly left the tongue that uttered 
them, Pontiac sprang with a bound in front of the English- 
man, with tomahawk uplifted above his head. The face of 
the savage was distorted with a hellish rage, such as no painter 
ever drew, or no sculptor ever wrought ! The captive quailed 
not for an instant, but met the demoniac gaze of the warrior, 
with an eye as fearless, if not as baleful, as his own. 

The two thus confronted each other for the space of a min- 
ute, and the Indian slowly lowered his weapon, and returned 
it to his girdle. The intensity of his ferocious look was re- 
laxed, but its unrelenting determination was still there, as he 
exclaimed : 

“ The white warrior is brave, but he has no strength, and 
his words are the words of a woman. There are many trees 
between Detroit and the great lakes, with a warrior of my peo- 

F 


90 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


pie behind each. The English captain forgets himself. He 
will go no more upon the war path. When the sun lifts the 
darkness from the river in the morning, so that the eyes of 
my people can know what their hands do, the white chief 
dies. The squaws and children of Pontiac are now gathering 
the wood that will consume him in its fires. My people will 
see if a warrior of the English King can boast so bravely in 
the flames as in the council chamber.” 

The chief paused, and uttered a low gutteral sound. In- 
stantly two savages entered and approached Gladwyn, and led 
him to a stake firmly driven in the ground, by one corner ot 
the lodge. They then proceeded to tie his hands and feef 
securely to the post, with thongs of deer skin, in such a 
manner that he was forced to stand upright, without the 
power to change, in the least, his position. This accom- 
plished, Pontiac and the two Indians departed, leaving the 
victim alone. 

Slowly the sun sank down behind the deep, dark forests of 
the western horizon, and the twilight came on, and thickened 
into night. The silent stars came forth one by one, and took 
up their appointed places in the vault of eternity. The giant 
trees bent their tops toward each other, as the wind wrestled 
with their foliage, and whispered of the centuries that had 
fled since they were saplings in the soil. 

The young English soldier was still alone, in the painful 
bonds of his captors. But the agony of thought deadened 
his physical sufferings. He knew that Pontiac was the blood- 
iest and most unrelenting of his fierce race, and that his many 
great wrongs had driven him into a mood of ferocious in- 
sanity. He had never yet betrayed the confidence reposed in 
him by the French, but from the English his people had only 
received outrage and injustice. He revenged himself accor- 


A TALE OF THE WAKS OF PONTIAC. 


91 


ding to his Indian nature, which was tireless in pursuit, and 
merciless in execution. 

The young soldier was a bound captive in the wilderness of 
the New World, and the silent shadow of Death was creeping 
in upon him. But his thoughts were not of himself. They 
were wandering over the broad expanse of forest and river, of 
mountain and prairie, over across three thousand miles of 
watery waste to the little cot on the banks of the Severn, that 
held all most dear to him of earth — his widowed mother, his 
only sister. It was hard to die thus, so young, so strong, so 
wedded to life by all the ties that make the most courageous 
natures shrink from the dread silence of the grave. Anon 
the current of his thoughts returned to his present surround- 
ings, and the sad face of the daughter of Pontiac looked up 
out of his vision. Was she safe? Had she escaped the de- 
tection and the vengeance of her father ? 

The big tears welled up into the eyes of the young soldier, 
and dropped, “ pat,” “ pat,” “ pat,” upon the dry leaves amid 
which he stood. When hope has deserted one in the hour of 
dire extremity, memory softens the hardest heart into the 
weakness of a child. 

A slight noise outside now came to the acute ear of the 
.captive, and on the instant two stalwart Indians entered. 
One was Wawatam, the Ojibwa, and the other a favorite 
young chief of Pontiac. Each was armed with gun, pistols, 
and scalping knife. They advanced toward Gladwyn and 
closely examined his bonds. Satisfied with the scrutiny, the 
young savage sat down upon the ground within a few feet of 
the prisoner, while the Ojibwa went outside and took up a 
position at the door. Not a word had been spoken. 

Slowly the hours waned on. Midnight had approached, 
and all sounds had ceased in the Indian encampment. 

In an hour thereafter, a form dimly seen in the darkness, 


92 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


slowly, and without the least sound from the yielding sand, 
snaking its way along toward a clump of bushes that stood at 
one corner of the chamber, and between the sentinel and the 
approaching object. Whatever the mysterious creature was, 
man or animal, it evidently meant mischief. When the back 
of the Indian was turned, the stealthy object would make a 
rapid advance, and when the former again faced the river, the 
latter would lay prone among the surrounding logs, from 
which it could not be distinguished. At last the clump of 
bushes was reached, and the creature lay still within the cover. 

In about fifteen minutes more, a light form, closely wrapped 
in a blanket, advanced out of the darkness into the dim light 
of the fire that smouldered near the spot where the sentinel 
now squatted upon the sand. The savage started to his feet, 
leveled his gun, and uttered a low sound. A whispered re- 
sponse, and the chief lowered his weapon, resumed his seat, 
and the form passed into the council chamber. The young 
warrior within uttered an ejaculation of surprise. 

Gladwyn looked up. Lac la Belle stood before Kim ! 

An expression of joy lit up the pale features of the En- 
glishman, as he recognized the maiden, which was about to 
express itself in words, when with a quick and intelligent 
gesture, she imposed silence. Then she approached the senti- 
nel, took his hand, looked up in his face with a beseeching 
smile, and said : 

“ Miantanoba, listen. You have told me that you loved 
the daughter of Pontiac. Release the English captain, and 
she promises to fly with you wherever you may direct, and be 
the wife of your wigwam. Lac la Belle swears this, and the 
Great Spirit hears her.” 

Wawatam, without, had his ear to a crevice between the 
logs, and was listening intently. 

The young chief within replied to the Indian maiden : 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


93 


“ Lac la Belle loves the Englishman, and it is for his sake 
that she will become the wife of Miantanoba. The dog shall 
die.” 

“ The white chief has been kind to the Indian girl,” replied 
the maiden, “ and she would save him. This is all she can 
say. The time is short. Will Miantanoba listen to my 
words ?” 

Wawatam pressed his ear closer to the aperture, and his 
face was distorted with a horrible ferocity. 

“ The dog shall die,” repeated the young Indian, “ and Lac 
la Belle will be the wife of Miantanoba, or Pontiac shall 
know that she loves the Englishman, and betrayed her 
people.” 

The Indian turned away from the suppliant. Quick as 
lightning she drew a long knife from the folds of her blanket, 
and struck its glittering blade deep into the heart of the sav- 
age. He reeled a moment, clutched at his tomahawk, and 
fell dead. 

A loud yell from the Ojibwa startled the sleeping echoes of 
the surrounding forests to their depths for miles. But ere 
that wild cry could be repeated, a dark object leaped up from 
the ground, seized the gigantic warrior by his long scalp lock, 
bent his head back, and drew a sharp knife across his throat, 
nearly severing the head from the body. 

“ Blast yer durned red hide, stop that hollerin' !” exclaimed 
the trapper, as the huge savage lay squirming and gasping at 
his feet. 

With a single bound the trapper cleared the dying form of 
his enemy and stood within the enclosure. Lac la Belle had 
already cut the thongs that had ;bound her lover, but his be- 
numbed limbs refused the efforts of his will, and the captive 
had sank to the ground. In an instant the trapper seized the 


94 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


prostrate form and swung it to his shoulder, as though it had 
but the weight of an infant. 

“ Gal, quick, lead the way to the river,” he whispered, and 
the two were soon in rapid flight in that direction. 

Scarce a minute had elapsed from the war whoop of the 
Ojibwa, to the release of the Englishman, and yet th ewhole 
encampment w r as alarmed, and wild yells and hurrying feet 
could be heard through the darkness. Pontiac was the first 
to hear the death cry of the sentinel, and leaping from 
his couch, sought to grasp his gun. But it was gone ! He 
shouted for his daughter. She was not there ! The chief 
gave a prolonged yell of rage, grasped his bow and a 
sheaf of arrows that lay in a corner of the lodge, and rushed 
out toward the council chamber. 

The Indians had evidently mistaken the cause of this night 
alarm. They naturally supposed that a rescuing party from 
the fort had been discovered by the sentinels, and were run- 
ning in every direction, the darkness adding to their confusion. 

Pontiac, followed by a few chiefs, entered the council cham- 
ber. The dead body of the sentinel, and the blanket of Lac 
la Belle close by the stake to which the Englishman had been 
bound, told the story. 

As the truth flooded fully upon the understanding of the 
fierce savage, the agony depicted upon his distorted features 
was fearful to look upon. He seemed like a demon paralyzed 
with rage. His breast heaved, and sobs and groanings issued 
therefrom. He clutched his throat, like one strangling with 
his emotions. The hated enemy of his race escaped, and his 
daughter the betrayer of her people ! All his plans, all his 
hopes thwarted in a moment. 

This scene lasted but a few seconds. A succession of loud 
yells, followed by the discharge of several guns in the direc- 
tion of the canoes, awakened the chief from his delirium of 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


95 


rage and despair. With the leap of a deer he cleared the 
threshold of the cabin, and sped away toward the river. 
Hundreds of his warriors had here gathered, and were run- 
ning up and down like infuriated madmen. Dimly seen in 
the far darkness of the river were the outlines of a single canoe, 
from which came the occasional splash of a paddle. All the 
rest of the fleet had been cut adrift long before the alarm, for 
none but the one that was propelled toward the opposite shore 
was in sight ! 

But the quick eye of Pontiac soon discovered a boat about 
fifty yards distant, which had been caught in the eddy of a 
rock. Without a word he plunged into the water, his weapon 
at his back. A few moments sufficed to place the desperate 
chief in possession of the canoe, and the chase began. 

The foremost boat had now got beyond the dark shadows 
which the tall forest had thrown upon the waters. In its 
prow could be seen the daughter of Pontiac, with the head of 
Gladwyn resting upon her knees. In the stern sat the trap- 
per, with skilled hand at the paddle. 

The old man was chuckling all over with suppressed glee, 
at an adventure he had evidently commenced relating to ears 
that heard not, for he continued : 

“ Yes, cap’in, its a mighty handy thing to have a file some- 
where about your clothes, when you happen to drift among 
people who keep dog chains for white men, and then go off 
alone to palaver with red Injins. Not that I blame you for 
goin’ acordin’ to your bringin’ up. Some folks never larn 
anything, ony what they got to home. Sich hev no bisness 
in the woods, specially when Injins are about. Cap’in, what’s 
your ’pinion of Christian warfare,’ jist about this time? 
Thet skelp of yourn aint jist safe yet, but you will hev time 
to give your ’pinion upon 1 Christian warfare ’ before that red 
devil off yonder ketches up with us.” 


96 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


The trapper here paused again to indulge in another 
chuckle, which he seemed to enjoy amazingly. 

“ Well, Cap’in,” hejesumed, "that sentinel of yourn went 
off into a doze like, and then I begun to snore like a drunken 
Frenchman. Bimeby he snored too, natural like. I had 
spiled your dog chain afore dark, while that chap had gone to 
git his rashuns. And so, when I knowed there warn’t no 
make b’lieve about that snore of his’n, I jist snapped the 
durn’d link close to my ankle, jumped squar over his head, 
knocked down the feller outside the door, and went over the 
stockade like an Injin thief in the night, swum the river, 
and you and your gal knows the rest. Cap’in, you won’t be 
mean enough to chain a feller up agin for this, on ‘ Christian 
warfare 9 rules, if I git vou and the gal back agin, safe to the 
fort, will you?” 

The trapper fairly laughed outright at the conclusion of 
his remarks, for the humor of the thing seemed so irresistible. 
So absorbed had he become in the recital of his escape from 
the fort, and in avenging his wrongs in quiet sarcasm at the 
author of them, that he had began to relax his efforts at the 
paddle, and had, in a manner, withdrawn his attention from 
the pursuit. All of a sudden the deep clouds over head 
parted, and the full moon came forth and illumined the entire 
bed of the river. The trapper looked hurriedly around. 
The canoe of Pontiac was less than thirty yards in the rear. 
The trapper now made a desperate effort to increase the dis- 
tance, when the paddle snapped short off in his hands ! 

“ Curse my babbling tongue,” he exclaimed, and his whole 
nature seemed to change at once. He answered the triumph- 
ant yell which Pontiac had uttered on being discovered, by a 
shout of defiance which echoed over the waters, and was even 
sent back from the defences of the fort, now plainly visible in 
the moonlight. 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


97 


“ Am I a fool from the great cities, that I prattle like a 
boy, when I should be silent and watchful over the lives that 
are in my keeping,” he yelled, starting to his feet, and look- 
ing around vainly for a weapon. 

“ Not even a knife,” he bitterly muttered, “ and a helpless 
man, and a feeble girl to be murdered before my eyes, unless 
I am killed first, which I pray God may happen.” 

He was interrupted by a scream from the Indian girl, as 
she sprang up, and threw herself in front of the young Eng- 
lishman. At the same instant an arrow whizzed past the 
trapper, and found lodgment in the breast ot Lac la Belle. 

Pontiac stood in the prow of his canoe, his splendid form 
clearly revealed in the moonlight, gazing intently ahead in an 
effort to ascertain the effect of his shot. 

“ It is well,” he murmured, in a sad tone. “ The arrow 
was aimed at another, but the Great Spirit directed its flight 
to the heart of her who would die for one of the accursed 
race. The daughter of Pontiac will soon be no more, but the 
Englishman, for whom she betrayed her people, shall go with 
her.” 

The savage deliberately placed another arrow to his bow, 
but ere he could draw the string, the sound of cannon rang 
from the fort, a number of balls splashed the water close to 
the boats, the canoe of Pontiac was knocked to pieces, and 
left the chief struggling in the water. At the same instant 
a boat filled with soldiers came in full view, and with a few 
more strokes of the oar was along side of the one that con- 
tained the fugitives. 

A few seconds sufficed for a hurried explanation, the canoe 
was fastened to the boat of the rescuing party, which had, by 
this time, turned its prow toward the fort. Neither Gladwyn 
nor the trapper was aware that the fatal arrow of Pontiac 
had found lodgment in the bosom of his daughter. She sat 


98 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


with her face bent downward upon her knees, and paid no 
attention to what was going on around her. 

As the boat rounded for the shore, the trapper leaned over 
to one of the soldiers and whispered : 

u Red coat, jist, accidentally like, hand me that smooth- 
bore of yourn. There is a murderin’ redskin a paddlin’ 
around out yonder, that wants a leetle help in his diffikilty. 
It is a shame to see a feller creter drown, when an ounce of 
lead could save him.” 

The Indian maiden raised her head quickly, and said : 

“ The white hunter may have a daughter among his own 
people. He will spare the life of the father of Lac la Belle ?” 

At the sound of her voice, Gladwyn aroused himself from 
his stupor and putting his hand upon the arm of the trapper, 
said, in his old tone of command : 

“ Man, you have saved my life, and what there is in my 
power to bestow upon you is for you to ask, or accept. But 
if you take the life of the chief, you shall die on the instant.” 

“ Well !” said the trapper, with a look of indignant amaze- 
ment, “what next? This goslin-hearted boy would hvae 
been roasted alive before noon to day, and the red devil who 
would hev lit the fire, is still within reach of a good aim, and 
not one of these fellers dare hand me a gun ! A little more 
of this ‘ Christian warfare/ and there won’t be a white scalp 
left on its owner’s head, between Detroit and Huron. It’s 
about time that Joe Lukens went back to the settlements, and 
joined the Methodists, or put on a petticoat and hired hisself 
out to nuss young niggers on the Virginia plantations !” 

Thus muttering, the trapper seated himself, with a look of 
inexpressible disgust, but his feelings were too powerful for 
continued silence. 

“ I can’t say I blame the gal. The bloody heathen was 
her father, and wimming nater’ is the same, in the woods, or 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


99 


in the cities. I couldn’t hev killed the cuss, arter she spoke 
so pleading like, onless he’d a hed his infernal knife at my 
own throat. But as for that brat of an English cap’in,” — 

The grating of the boat upon the gravelly shore, and the 
immediate preparations for landing, cut short the unfinished 
giowlings of the angry trapper. A dozen soldiers, with pine 
torches in their hands, and anxious inquiry in their faces, stood 
ready to receive their comrades. At the sight of their com- 
mander and his two companions, the main facts of the case 
were at once comprehended, and cheer after cheer rent the 
general silence. These were taken up by a hundred throats 
within the fort, and in defiance of all discipline and danger, 
the whole garrison — men, women, and children, rushed fran- 
tically down to the landing. 

By this time Gladwyn had nearly recovered from his dazed 
bewilderment, and began to issue his orders with something 
of his old soldierly spirit. He released the hand of the In- 
dian maiden, which up to this time he had held closely in his 
own, though neither had spoken to the other from the com- 
mencement of the fearful adventure to its close, and with the 
assistance of a soldier, stepped upon the shore. He turned 
and addressed Lac la Belle in a soft and tender voice : 

“ The preserver of my life will arise and come into the fort, 
where I can thank her devoted heroism and loving regard, as 
I cannot do here.” 

The girl stirred not, and made no sign. But in the 
now hushed silence, her stifled breathing, and low choking 
sobs, could be distinctly heard. The soldiers, who had 
crowded round, looked wonderingly into each other’s faces for 
explanation of the sad and touching behavior of the maiden. 

A loud exclamation — almost a shriek — fell from the lips of 
the trapper, who, since the boat touched, had sat in sullen 
silence upon the bottom of the canoe. 


100 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


“ The arrow — the gal is dying !” he gasped out, and, spring- 
ing to his feet, he lifted her up gently in his arms, stepped 
ashore, and strode rapidly through the parted crowd toward 
the fort. 

Gladwyn caught the exclamation, and knew at once its 
dread import. He stood a moment like one from whom life 
had suddenly departed, uttered a suppressed moan, and then, 
assisted by a soldier on either side, tottered on in the direction 
of the others. 

Lac la Belle lay upon a bed, the rude trapper kneeling 
beside her, sobbing like an infant. The surgeon was in at- 
tendance, and had extracted the arrow, just as Gladwyn stag- 
gered into the room. He motioned for the soldiers who had 
crowded around, to leave. Then there were none by the bed- 
side of the dying girl, save the commander, the surgeon, and 
the trapper. 

“ There is no hope,” whispered the surgeon, in answer to' 
an imploring look from the young officer. 

Gladwyn approached the bed, bent over the silent sufferer,, 
and pressed his lips fondly to hers. The maiden slowly 
opened her eyes, a tender, loving smile illuminated her face. 
She feebly raised her arms, entwined them about the neck of 
her lover, and drew his face down upon her bosom. A few 
moments thus passed in silence, when the surgeon stepped 
forward, and softly released the clasp of the girl. 

“ This will not do,” he whispered into the ear of Gladwyn., 
“ Her time is but brief, and she may have something impor- 
tant to say before she departs.” 

Gladwyn raised himself to his feet. His vest was clotted 
with blood — the blood of the dying. 

At this moment a Jesuit missionary, who had just arrived 
at the fort, glided into the room. 


A TALE OF THE WARS OF PONTIAC. 


101 


The trapper still knelt as at first, but gave no sign. Not a 
sound escaped him. 

Gladwyn again bent over the maiden, and in a whisper 
choked by emotion, asked her if she had any request to make. 

The question seemed instantly to revive her. In a low 
voice she said : 

“ It may be a wild and foolish wish. I know that my 
spirit is passing away, or I would not say the words. Will 
the white chief make the daughter of Pontiac his wife, after 
the custom of his own people ?” 

Instantly Gladwyn knelt down, took the girl’s hand in his 
own, and motioned to the priest. 

And there in the hour and article of death, these two 
beings were pledged to each other in marriage, and the mis- 
sionary pronounced a benediction upon their union. 

Then the soldier arose to his feet, softly lifted the head of 
his wife from the pillow, and laid his cheek against hers. 
She threw her arms about his neck, and with a look of in- 
effable happiness whispered : 

“ Husband !” 

Her head fell back. Gladwyn looked into her face and 
uttered a low cry. 

Lac la Belle had died in his arms. 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


I HAD congratulated myself that the “Old Settler” did not 
deceive a credulous emigrant when he assured me that 
the weather here in Northern Michigan, owing to the mild 
influence of the lake, was of about the same temperature in 
winter as in New Jersey. In great peace of mind I rested 
in this delusion until that great day of the heart* Christmas^, 
came, with its simple blessings and enjoyments to the lonely 
and neglected children of our wilderness world. But on the 
evening of that day the scales fell from my eyes, and icicles 
took their places. An unusual roaring of the great lake, and 
a prolonged irregular moaning of the winds, heralded the 
gathering elemental agitation. The North Pole was evidently 
stirring up the animals. And now a continuous roar in the 
forest told me that Boreas had stripped himself to an extra 
effort. His icy breath gathered fresh volume with each in- 
halation. The snow came down in blinding sheets of drift, 
which were caught up by the $ngry gale, and hurled back 
to the clouds from whence they had been cast forth. Fantas- 
tic shapes and wierd devices were in the instant designed and 
sculptured upon my cabin window 

“ By the elfin fingers of the Frost.” 

In brief, it came on the coldest night I ever experienced, and 
how I survived to give it this historic record puzzles my yet 
unthawed understanding. 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


103 


But the “ Old Settler,” with the proverbial honesty of his 
race, assures me that in the fifteen years he has lived on the 
Lake Shore, he never knew as cold a winter as the present. 
Doubtless he asseverated the same thing to my predecessor 
last year this time, and will continue to unwind the same yarn 
to the next newcomer, unless, as I fervently hope, he may 
be suddenly cut off and that without remedy. 

“ But what has all this wordy, windy, inappropo introduc- 
tory to do with the subject matter suggested by your heading?^ 

It is a provoked inquiry, O justifiable interrupter, and 
shall be truly and unreservedly answered : 

Nothing! only nothing, and nothing more. But it was 
packed atop my mental hamper, and had to be unloaded ere 
the true matter could be reached. 

And thus, like a camel re-assured by the removal of a har- 
assing burden, I proceed with renewed pace through the 
desert of my destination. I will now give you a faithful 
compilation of my first hunting expedition in these gorgeous 
wilds. 

From childhood I was a mighty hunter — in imagination. 
Western border adventure constituted my chief reading, and 
Leather Stocking was my ideal of a hero and a man. But 
in New Jersey, the land of my birth and boyhood, there was 
no game in the animal line of greater calibre than the fero- 
cious rabbit, and in the feathered way the robin stood, or 
rather flew, pre-eminent. Living all my life in cities, I sel- 
dom had opportunity to practice my cruel designs even upon 
these. 

But when in an evil hour Satan, through his innocent 
agent, Horace Greeley, called upon me to “ go west,” visions 
of bear, deer, wild turkeys, and other beasts and birds, each 
after his kind, danced through my enkindled imagination, 
and I started forth with a whole arsenal of destructive arms. 


104 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


First was a new English double barrel breech loader, of lam- 
inated steel, for which I paid $100, (per ninety days note of 
hand, which the fortunate seller still holds among his assets as 
a panic bankrupt, good of itself, as Jay Gould’s Northern 
Pacifies, but difficult of realization until congress inflates the 
currency sufficiently to tide over many things now apparently 
grounded beyond hope, or the reach of resurrection. This is 
a rather long parenthesis, but truth is mighty and will pre- 
vail.) This was supplemented (not the parenthesis, but the 
gun mentioned above,) by a single barrel of assured excellence. 
Then came a Springfield musket, which I had patriotically car- 
ried (by a $600 substitute,) all through the war of the rebellion. 
A short and beautiful Wesson rifle, and a Spencer seven 
shooter army carbine, completed the armament with which I 
started for my new home in the Northwest. Of course I 
expected to find deer innumerable, in the woods immediately 
surrounding my little “ clearing,” and to be chased by a bear 
every time I went down to the log barn to feed “ Fritz,” my 
diminutive but vicious scrub of a Canadian pony. 

Filled with content and happiness at the novelty of my 
new life, I shouldered my Wesson, a few days after my arri- 
val, and struck out into the solemn primeval forest. My 
destination was Au Sable Lake, three miles distant, and the 
way was pointed out to me by a Norwegian neighbor, he be- 
ing one of the three only settlers of our locality. 

The scene as I entered the dark wilderness, was so differ- 
ent from all my past associations, that I soon became absorbed 
in reflections, solemn and suggestive. The dense and silent 
solitude was filled with huge trees, whose first roots had 
struck into the soil centuries before Columbus bored the 
slothful rulers of Genoa and Spain, with his vagaries of a 
New World. Mighty hemlocks were here, whose trunks, 
near the ground, measured five feet in diameter, and whose 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


105 


individual years numbered five centuries. Hundreds of such 
lay prone amid these solitudes, the victims of fire, of age, 
and of decay, and it requires a strong and active hunter to 
thread his way amid these barriers to progress. The scene to 
me presented the fanciful idea, that in some age long past, 
there had been a battle of the forests, and the slain had been 
left to blanch and moulder where they had fallen ! 

In about an hour I reached Au Sable, and found it a lovely 
sheet of water, about three miles in circumference, of crystal 
clearness, and belted with pine trees, whose green tops were 
proof against the season’s changes, and which suggest thoughts 
of the glorious summer time, even when the winter rages in 
unrestrained fury. 

But what sent the blood tingling from citadel to extremities, 
and gave uncontrollable nervousness to body and limbs, 
was the long lines of geese and ducks that were feeding in 
the distance upon the serge and celery of the shallow places 
in the lake. I felt that my hour of success as a hunter had 
arrived, and that my next letters to expectant friends at the 
East would shine with the resplendent record of my exploits. 

I got down upon my hands and knees and crawled the 
third of a mile to a clump of bushes that stood between me 
and my intended victims. The journey proved a laborious 
and exhausting one to a rather fleshy man, whose running 
weight is one hundred and eighty pounds. But expectation 
sustained me, and I reached the coveted ambush at last. 
With a heart that beat time to my excitement, and seemed 
determined to break out and see the “ sport,” I cautiously 
raised my head above the low sand ridge. Nimrod & Co., 
what a sight ! At least ten thousand wild fowl were in view ! 
But the nearest line was all of one hundred and fifty yards 
from my cover. I lay prone for a full half hour, shaking 
all over with novel excitement, waiting for a nearer approach 

G 


106 


MY FIRST HUKT IN MY NEW HOME. 


of the game. At the end of this time my movements had 
evidently been discovered. The enemy broke up his regular 
formations, and gathered in little squads to discuss the situa- 
tion. They bobbed their heads up and down suspiciously, 
sailed here and there in narrow circles, and seemed to keep 
up a knowing conversation as to the proper mode of proce- 
dure. At last one old fellow, a sort of admiral Drake of the 
fleet, whose green head glistened gorgeously in the sunlight, 
swam out toward me, first presenting one side and then the 
other, and finally came to a full halt at a distance of about 
fifty yards from my hiding place. 

My nervousness had now fearfully increased. I shook all 
over, like one with the double-breasted ague. Finally I 
managed to rest my rifle upon a dead limb, and tried to take 
aim. But my vision seemed to blur every object. In vain 
I tried to bring the muzzle of my piece upon the intended 
victim. There seemed to be four barrels to my rifle, while 
about fourteen “ sights” waltzed up and down, backward and 
forward, and all around the end thereof! 

At last I managed to pull trigger at a wild and desperate 
venture. A sharp crack, and then I looked out anxiously 
for the effect. The old drake raised himself up on his hind 
legs, gave his wings a few flaps and settled down again 
quietly in the same spot. After two or three minutes of 
effort I managed to get another cartridge into the “ death- 
dealing” weapon. With increased trepidation I sent another 
bullet after that invulnerable, imperturbable green-headed 
monster ! He acknowledged the compliment precisely as at 
first ! I fired two more shots in quick succession, with the 
same pantomime as the afterpiece from the party of the first 
part ! Finding that the cuss was inclined to be facetious at 
my expense, I retired from the scene in disgust, and plunged 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 107 

into the forest followed by a most awful din of u quack/ r 
“ quack/’ “ quack ! ” from the whole company ! 

Just as the gloom and silence of the woods began to deepen 
around me, and while absorbed in meditation over the obdu- 
racy of Michigan ducks, a fearful screech issued from a lofty 
hemlock, right over my head ! In an instant I felt bodily 
petrified to the spot, but with every mental faculty sharpened 
to an intensity never felt before. All that my youthful days 
had ever heard or read about panthers, came flashing back 
upon memory. I remembered how the treacherous varmints 
would lay crouched upon huge limbs, and as the weary trav- 
eler passed under, a scream, followed by an instantaneous 
spring, heralded his doom ! The hair of my head stood up, 
like that of the chap who saw the vision in Job. The rifle 
dropped from my nerveless grasp ! The “ mighty hunter ” 
was as helpless as a child in the presence of this sudden and 
unseen danger ! Romance had fled at the first approach of 
reality. 

The seconds thus passed seemed like hours in duration. 
Slowly my numbed physical faculties recalled themselves to 
partial activity. I raised my eyes to the fascinating point of 
danger, just as the horrible sound was repeated ! 

And there was the forest-fiend in full view ! It was the 
limb of a tall pine tree, the body of which had blown over 
against an adjacent hemlock, and as the wind swayed the sup- 
port, the friction of the infernal limb gave forth the sound 
that had so paralyzed my faculties ! 

The discovery brought instantaneous relief ; and with an 
attempt at a smile, which was not as successful as one inter- 
ested could have wished, I picked up my rifle and resumed 
the hunt. 

About a mile further on I passed the cabin of a wood 
chopper ; and leading directly from a little outlying shed I 


108 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


discovered, in the light snow which still remained in the 
woods, the fresh track of a deer ! It was of unusually large 
size, and I set it down as having been made by an immense 
buck. Having but a vague, city idea of the animal and his 
appetites and habits, I surmised that the prowler had been 
-depredating upon the poor man’s henroost, and in this thought 
sought justification in an attempt to slay him, although the 
law then protected such game as “ out of season.” 

And so I pursued the track with all the excitement of a 
novice in the hunting business, anxious to bring down an 
illustrious antlered denizen of the wilds. At intervals all 
along the trail I could see where the animal had rooted the 
snow away, that he might reach the food beneath, and these 
signs at last became so fresh that I knew a few minutes more 
must bring on the crisis. All of a sudden I saw a move- 
ment in the thick undergrowth a short distance ahead ! This 
discovery brought on the “ buck ager,” as the natives denom- 
inate that shaking attack which always seizes upon the hunter 
when called to confront his first deer, still I pushed cautiously 
forward, my heart sounding like the rapid thumping of shore 
water under a beached canoe. 

All at once I saw that the track had left the old lumber trail, 
and turned to the left into the woods. I stopped a moment to 
reconnoitre. Suddenly with a loud succession of grunts, the 
enemy leaped from behind a huge hemlock into the middle of 
the road, and drew up in crescent-shaped order of battle, the 
concave inclining outward ! Her tusks rattled away like the 
castinets of a negro minstrel, only the sounds were those of 
alarm, rage and defiance. Judging from her double battery 
of heavy guns, she must have left a large family at home 
while she went out to forage. You ought to have seen this 
“ hunter ” take to a tree ! The movement showed timidity, 
and the enemy became emboldened thereby, and at once 


MY FIRST HUNT IN' MY NEW HOME. 


109 


pushed the advantage aggressively. She came on sideways, 
like a hog for war ! Every separate bristle stood straight up, 
like 1 o’clock ! 

“ Piggy, piggy, poor old piggy,” I exclaimed, in the most 
seductive tones I could get through my chattering teeth. 
But the fiend was proof against such gentle blandishments, 
and moved on my works, slowly but determinedly. She was 
now within a few feet of my tree, with the foam dropping 
from her champing jaws ! 

Well, beloved reader, I did what many a brave man has 
done before, in the face of overwhelming odds. I took to 
my heels through the woods ! With fierce grunts of tri- 
umph, the enemy came on in pursuit. A limb knocked off 
my hat, and another nearly knocked out an eye. But true 
courage is not disconcerted by trifles, and my short legs did 
their duty manfully. The “ time ” I made, notwithstanding 
the bad condition of the track, is a marvel to me even unto 
this day. In a little while the sounds of pursuit grew fainter 
and fainter, and at length entirely ceased. The victory was 
mine ! 

But I got lost in the woods, and wandered around for 
hours, in helpless bewilderment. Just as I was about giving 
out in utter despair, the sound of the great lake struck its 
joyous tones to my heart, and afforded me a clue through the 
labyrinth. I soon reached its welcome shore, and then knew 
my way. 

I entered my home just after dark, hatless, clothes torn to 
tatters, and soaked, fore and aft, in blood by the brambles. 

When I had related my adventure to the family, my wife, 
who is of an affectionate disposition, kindly complimented 
me as being the “ biggest fool in the settlement ! ” 

“ You’re a pretty hunter, you are,” she continued, “ don’t 
know a hog from a deer ! ” 


110 


MY FIRST HUNT IN MY NEW HOME. 


Sympathetic reader, the tracks of the two distinct animals 
are very similar to an unpracticed eye, only that of the grown 
swine is much the largest. But then, you see, I thought the 
deer I was after was such a thundering big fellow! Pray 
excuse the mistake. 


MY MAPLE. 


I T stands right against the little western window of my 
cabin, does the maple tree of which I write. How the 
fierce fire spared it in its hunger, that time the clearing was 
first burned over, and log, and limb, and underbrush shrank 
into ashes in an instant, is yet an unsolved mystery to the 
mind untutored in wild western phenomenon. But here it 
stands, the sole remaining living representative of what was 
three years ago sixteen acres of primeval forest. The deso- 
lation was accomplished the year before I had left my eastern 
home to enter upon the forty acres of which this clearing is 
a part. My maple alone stands, untouched and vigorous, 
amid the charred and ashy desolation of its surroundings. 

When the snows of the long northern winter have at last 
yielded to the encroachments of the later spring upon their 
sovereignty, how I love to sit and watch the swelling buds of 
my lonely maple, unfolding toward the green leaf, and to see 
their shadows deepening, day by day, upon the little carpet of 
white clover beneath. June comes in its season and brings 
my sturdy little maple a rich garniture of green, which the 
cunning dew drop loves to gather upon when the night 
comes on, to be burnished into diamonds by the morning 
sun. And then the little birds come from the far South, and 
seek out even here the homes of rude, uncultivated men, and 
awaken with music those old memories of other lauds that 
so sadden the heart and purify the soul of the wanderer. 

There was one little fellow — a very little fellow — who came 
early last Summer and took a squatter title to my maple. 


112 


MY MAPLE. 


And all the beautiful days would he hop from twig to twig, 
peering under the leaves for tiny insects. Ah ! has Nature, 
in all her ways, no exception to the law of Destroyer and 
"Victim ? 

This little bird of mine is all over bottle green, except a 
narrow clerical streak of white about his throat, and an un- 
dertaker’s patch of regulation mourning at the termination of 
his tail. He has a keen, inquisitive little eye, that finds the 
food that has just escaped the careless search of the restless 
little wren — that belligerent marauder upon the bailiwick of 
all the other feathered tribes, from hawk to humming-bird. 

Sometimes my bird of the maple will hop out cautiously 
to the very end of the limb nearest my window, within a few 
feet of my manuscript, turn his little black eye curiously and 
inquiringly into my face, as though he thought I must be 
hungry, and in need of the still fluttering miller he holds in 
his little bill. 

One morning my little melodist brought a companion with 
him from the forest, of his own kind, but of a soberer hue. 
And wasn’t that thereafter a happy couple ! Side by side 
in their leafy covert would they sit all the matin morning, 
and sing and twitter lovingly to each other, dart at intervals, 
like animated emeralds, into the sunlight, then back again 
into their home by my window. All this was a new joy to 
me. Dear reader, if you ever come to live alone in the 
solemn wilderness, you will be glad to find companionship in 
humble and unregarded things. 

One day I noticed that my little friends were unusually 
restless, as though agitated by the near pressure of some 
important event. As I watched their amusing earnestness of 
demonstration toward each other, they sallied olf, and in a 
few moments after I had resumed my writing, I was inter- 
rupted by a muffled twitter. Glancing at my maple, behold 


MY MAPLE. 


113 


my little friends, with each a shred of building material in 
its bill ! My birdies had been getting married and were pre- 
paring for the consequences ! 

Well, the nuptial nest was finally completed, and Mrs. 
Green did her duty in the premises. By poking my rifle 
into the tree, and displacing a few interlaced branches, I was 
rejoiced with a view of four dear little eggs of deep blue, 
mottled with irregular brown spots. And upon these did 
Mrs. Green sit, day by day, rarely leaving her maternal treas- 
ures, Mr. Green industriously bringing her the nicest fat 
grubs that an adjacent sward afforded. 

And wasn’t little Mr. Green jolly ! Hour by hour would 
he sit 

“Atilt like a blossom, amid the leaves, 

And let his illumined being o’errun, 

With the deluge of summer it receives. 

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings. 

He sings to the wide world and she to the nest. — 

In the nice ear of Nature, which song is the best?” 

But I weary the impatient reader, and I fear but few others 
peruse these musing vagaries of mine, and so I will not push 
this picture to completion. A beautiful and instructive finale 
remains undisclosed in the inner recesses of memory. Some 
few souls of clearer mould wish I had proceeded, and to pun- 
ish such for being less gross than their fellows, I drop my 
birdies out of sight. 

The summer by the Great Lake is gone, and taken wfith it 
the beauty and the glory of clearing and forest. My eyes are 
fixed tearfully upon my maple. Its branches are bare and 
verdureless, save where here and there upon a moaning limb 
a yellow and withered leaf clings to its sapless stem, as 
though reluctant to go down to the cold and pitiless earth. 


114 


MY MAPLE. 


But even as I gaze, one by one these last lingering creations of 
the summer shower and sunshine drop silently downward, are 
caught up by the autumnal winds and eddied onward beyond 
the ken of my tearful vision. 

And even thus from the tree of life have the companions of 
my boyhood passed into the oblivion of the grave. The sum- 
mer sun comes and goes, my maple puts on and off its green 
garniture, but to the associates of my youth there is no 
earthly resurrection. Good men tell us of a happy land be- 
yond the dark river, where pain, nor death, nor sorrow never 
enter, and where the trees ever bloom by the waters of eternal 
life. Happy is he who has faith in these things, for to him 
Death is but the janitor who holds in trust the key of his 
eternal heritage. 


I 


ANOTHER INTERESTING INTERVIEW 
WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 


T HE snow storm had lasted three days, and was still doing 
its best to hide from the eye of man all the work of his 
hands. The fences had disappeared. The drifts had envi- 
roned the few cabins of the clearing, even to the eaves of the 
roof. The wreaths of smoke from the roaring fires beneath 
were scarcely discernible through the white siftings of the 
dark clouds, as the winds roared, and howled, and whistled, 
and screeched in the maddened play of the tempest. The 
mighty hemlocks swayed to and fro like drunken men, and 
the solemn moanings of the agonized lake mingled in the 
elemental convulsion, sounding like a dirge from eternity 
over a shaken and endangered world. 

“ Surely,” said I, in a congratulatory mental expression, 
“ mine adversary will not trouble me to-day, and the train 
of thought I am exercising for my pet new story will receive 
no fatal interruption from the thoughtless garrulity of my 
distant neighbor, the “ Old Settler.” 

So thinking, and fortified by the thought, I seated my- 
self at my little pine table, scattered around my last few 
sheets of paper one by one, that the whole entablature might 
have that slovenly literary appearance which is supposed to 
mark the indifference of transcendent genius to the graces of 
order; inked my pen to its hilt so that in drawing it back its 
contents might drop blots upon all its surroundings — which 
is also another mark — a black one — of the unaffected genius 
of your true romance writer ; ran my finger through the bald 


116 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

place on the top of my head, “ where the hair used to grow 
put on the regulation frown, and the troubled look which 
distinguishes our tribe when desirous of being “ interesting” 
in the sight of the softer sex, and then bent over to the work 
before me, the initial chapter of my new “ thrilling” story. 

Imagination was propitious and poured out her wealth of 
romance faster than my pen could invoice her generous 
donations. Just as I had inked the entrance of the lovely 
Georgiana Wilhelmina Jenkins upon the stage, leaning upon 
the arm of Charles Augustus Henry de Leatherhead, a sound 
outside my cabin sent my heated fancy down into the bulb of 
zero. 


“ And my heart in its leap stood still, like a frozen waterfall !” 

Yes, there was no mistaking either the song or the 
singer, as these lines cut their way, sharp and ringing, through 
the frosty air : 

“ I fought with General Sherman, 

For the flag of Uncle Sam, 

And we marched through Georgia 
Just like a d !” 

It was the “Old Settler” that here lifted the latch and 
stood before me, six feet three inches in his snow shoes ! 

“ Kinder rough out this mornin’ !” was his opening saluta- 
tion. “ Reckon your fellers what’s a haulin’ saw-logs down 
by the old Ingun trail won’t make morn’n a half day of it. 
Oxen ain’t worth much on a pull of forty inches of snow to 
the square foot on a dead level, leavin’ out the big drift at the 
head of the gorge. Better go and tell ’em to call it half a 
day, neighbor, or I’ll be durned if them Norweegin scalawags 
■won’t fool around there,, makin’ a big fuss, and doin’ nothin’, 


ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 117 

and then charge for a hull day. You don’t know them fur- 
rin chaps that hev dropped down this way from the old coun- 
try as well as you will after a while, and I don’t want to see 
you fooled out of your money by no sich. When you give 
me that new hat last summer, when the ’tater bugs was doin' 
their level best on a short notice, I made up my mind to look 
out a little arter your interests.” 

I had thus far paid no attention to my tormentor, except a 
cold nod of recognition at his entrance, but pretended to be 
engaged in the hopeless task of continuing my writing. Ob- 
serving that I made no response to his kindly suggestion in 
reference to the men in my employ, he drew a chair toward 
the stove, squirted a gill of tobacco juice upon that useful 
.servitor of a cold cabin, which instantly resented the indig- 
nity by a fierce and prolonged hiss. 

The Old Settler sat a few moments in meditative silence, 
and then broke forth with: 

“ ’Pears to me, mister, that you’m a leetle huffy this 
mornin’.” 

“ To tell you the truth, my friend,” I rejoined, “ you have 
come in upon me just as I was engaged on a very particular 
task of writing that I am anxious to finish to-day, and really 
I cannot afford the time at present for that neighborly talk 
that would be so agreeable under ordinary circumstances. 
But to-day you will have to excuse me.” 

“Jes so, mister, jes so ! Bizness afore pleasure is the sap- 
lin’ that’s always safe to tie to. But it don’t make the least 
mite of difference to me. I kin talk jist as well to a feller 
when he’s a writin, as when he aint. The screechin’ of that 
pen of your’n don’t flusterfy me a bit. I kin do pretty much 
all the talkin’ while you go on with the writin’.” 

I here resumed my work with wild determination, and the 
Old Settler pulled forth a plug of real Virginia “ niggar 


118 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

head ” from his pouch, shaved off a few slices with his hunt- 
ing knife, filled his short dingy pipe, lit it, and puffed away 
for a few seconds in mollified silence. But a thought sud- 
denly insisted upon utterance, and removing his pipe from his 
mouth he resumed his interruptions thus : 

“ Mister, I was over to Bear Lake last Sunday to set my 
otter traps, when I met Jim Huffman, who was goin’ down to 
Shelby with a thunderin’ big buck on his bob-sled, which he 
had popped over that mornin’ at the lower licks. And Jim 
up and axed me what your fust name was, as he wanted to 
git the schoolmaster to write a letter for him about hi rein’ 
out to you to do that loggin’ on the south side of your forty. 
What mout your fust name be ? ” 

I threw myself back in my chair, and in a tone half indig- 
nant, half despairing, exclaimed : 

“ Bored ! my first name is Bored ! just at present.” 

The Old Settler replaced his pipe in his mouth, gave a few 
vigorous sucks by way of reviving its dying embers, mused 
a moment, and then said : 

“ Are you any a kin to the Bords down about Muskegon ?” 

This was about the last feather, and I could make no 
response. The Old Settler must have observed the despair of 
my expression, for he said, in a kindly and encouraging tone : 

“ Don’t mind me, neighbor Bord. Go on with that job of 
writin’. It’s jist the same to me if you talk back or don’t 
talk back. I reckon I know what belongs to manners, and 
when a man is busy I don’t expect him to strike his axe in a 
stump and set down on the log to talk on my account. That’s 
Pete Higgins, that is, and I don’t keer a dead coon for the 
best man livin’, eny furder then civilty is concerned.” 

A new stratagem here suggested itself as a last resort to my 
painfully bewildered senses. I remembered that this imper- 
turbable monster — this uncouth Hercules of the woods — had 


ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 119 

informed me on a previous occasion that he had learned to 
read a little while in the army. There was a bound volume 
of Littell’s Living Age upon my table, and it might be possi- 
ble to get him interested in some one of its pages. I pushed 
the book toward him, and with a seductive but false smile, 
spoke the horrible man, thus : 

“ My dear friend and neighbor, here is a book of many in- 
teresting facts. I know you cannot fail to become interested 
in it .” 

My tormentor stretched forth * his hairy, horny, brawny 
hand, and took the proffered volume, and I resumed my writ- 
ing, hopeful that a diversion in my favor had at last been ac- 
complished. But this hope soon proved to be 

“Like the snowflake on the river, 

A moment bright, then gone forever ! ” 

A grunt of dissatisfaction again called my attention from my 
manuscript to my visitor. I looked up. He had just fin- 
ished spelling out the name upon the back of the book, and 
a look of unutterable contempt was fast spreading over his 
hard features. He pushed the volume back toward me with 
a gesture of disgust : 

“ Mister,” he exclaimed, “ the feller what writ that book is 
a durn’d eternal humbug ! ‘ Little Livin’ Agee !! ’ The little 
agee may do well enough for them chaps in the East, what 
ain’t got stuff enough about ’em to keep their backbones 
straight, and who a right smart Western wind would blow 
out of their boots, and snap their pipe-stem legs into inch 
pieces, but no little agee for me. When one of us fellers out 
here git anything onnateral we want it big, acordin’ to the 
country. 

“ L-i-t-t-l-e livin’ agee ! And had to go and write a book 
about a thing that was’no great shakes, no how ! The poor 


120 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE a OLD SETTLER.” 

Yankee slink, there ain’t man enough in him to face a wood- 
chuck. I’ll bet all my winter’s hunt that my old woman, 
who is now well onto sixty years, can take that chap by the 
back of the neck and snap his toe nails off!” 

The old settler paused a moment, but the expression of dis- 
gust upon his face continued to deepen. He shook his head 
slowly from side to side, by way of emphasis to the contempt 
that w r as evidently gathering strength within him. At length 
he looked up, and seeing me in the attitude of despair, ex- 
claimed : 

“ Go on with that writin’, Mister. I can talk all day, and 
if all the little livin’ agee chaps in the East was a writin’ 
books right under my nose, it wouldn’t make me forgit a 
word what I wanted to say.” 

Again he stopped, again shook his head in a most dissat- 
isfied manner, and grunted forth his suppressed indignation. 
His silence continued for several minutes, and observing that 
his eyes were closed, and the motion of his head had subsided 
into only an occasional jerk backward, I fancied that my tor- 
mentor had sought in sleep a temporary refuge from the pain- 
ful consideration of a subject that had so disturbed him. I 
cautiously resumed my pen, and recommenced work upon 
my new story. But I had scarcely penned a dozen words, 
when he suddenly wheeled his chair around in front of me, 
and opened his oral battery with renewed vigor. 

“ I wonder if that slack-twisted Yankee cuss ever heard of 
the big shakin’ agee ? When I lived in Ingeeana I had it 
nigh onto ’leven months at a stretch. I ain’t no child, to 
sniffle and whimper at what can’t be helped, but that rather 
fetched me. 

“ Neighbor Bord, at the eend of the fust six months I hadn’t 
meat enough on these bones to tempt a starved wolf, and I 
used to shake the children out of bed} some nights when 


ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “ OLD SETTLER.” 121 

it was extra bad, until at last the old woman lied to make 
’em sleep on the floor, without any kivers. Every durned 
rag in the cabin, and all the deer skins, hed to be piled on 
me to keep me from freezin’, and tied on with the clothes line 
at that ! 

u Well, I hadn’t been able to earn a cent in all this time, 
and at last everything in the house was eat up. And the 
children began to come around where I would be a mopin’ 

when once in awhile I had an off day from the d shakes, 

and ask me for a piece of bread. And the oldest one looked 
wolfish-like out of his eyes, 'when the baby toddled near him. 
So my wife sed to me one day, 1 Pete,’ sed she, ‘ you’ve al- 
ways been a good husband to me, except sometimes when I 
was cross myself, and unreasonable, but I know neither of 
us really meant it. But you ain’t much stronger now than 
little Sis, and if splittin’ shingle bolts was five dollars a cord, 
you couldn’t earn a loaf of bread a week. But something 
must be done, or Pete will eat up the baby right before our 
eyes. I’ve been thinkin’ about this until I’ve had to go out 
doors behind the cabin and have a good cry where none of 
you could see me. But this morning when I went out into 
the woods to see if I could’t find a few late berries, I came 
across something that will fill the meal barrel, and get some 
pork, and perhaps a little tea and sugar for you. I won’t tell 
you now, but in the morning, when you feel the shakes 
coming on, just let me know.’ 

“Well, friend Bord, this kind of cheered me up, but what 
on airth the old woman meant I couldn’t begin to guess. 
But next mornin’, just as daylight was breakin’ into the clear- 
ing, I felt the old crawl agoin’ up and down my back. I 
waked up my wife, and told her that I know’d that there was 
an old he shake a cornin’ on that would likely rattle all the 
bones out of my body. 


H 


122 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

“ She to once helped me out of bed/ and I made out to git 
on my poor old ragged trowsers that was too rotten to mend, 
and out of doors I staggered, leaning on her shoulder. We 
tottered on for about half a mile, stoppin’ to rest once in 
awhile, till at last the old woman sed : 

“ ‘ Dear Pete, here’s what the good Lord has provided for 
us in our great distress/ and she pointed to the top of a 
thunderin’ big hickory tree, that was covered with jist the 
biggist crop of nuts that eny man ever laid his eyes on. 
The tree crotched out about fifteen feet from the ground, and 
then, for want sharpens a feller’s wits, I began to see the 
whole thing like a flash. 

“ ‘ But how am I to get up there ?’ says I. 

“ With that she stepped into the bushes and dragged out a 
ladder, which she had herself made out of two poles, and 
nailed some old shingles onto them about a foot apart. Then 
she raised it agin the tree, but it was almighty hard work for 
her, and it jist reached the place. Without another word I 
crawled up, and sat down in the crotch. The agee had just 
got to work, and in about ten minutes begun to put in the 
big licks ! 

“The way them nuts came rattlin’ down about that time 
was wuth the best circus you ever seed ! 

“The old woman undertook to pick ’em up in her apron, 
but she soon give up the job, and skeeted from under with 
both hands spread over her head. In ten minutes there 
wasn’t a dozen nuts left on that tree, and hardly a leaf either. 
At last the old woman sung out : 

“ ‘ Pete, for mercy sake come right down ! If you stay up 
there another minute the whole top will be shook off, all the 
way above your head, and drop down and mash you ?’ 

“I looked up, and sure enough some of the biggest limbs 
was beginnin’ to split off* from the body ! I seed at once 


ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 123 

that the ladder would be too slow work, so I grasped my arms 
around the tree as far as they would reach, shet my eyes, said 
a short grace, and slid ! 

“ Mr. Bord, it was a shag-bark hickory, old as all creation, 
and as rough as they make ’em. I was about two seconds in 
reaching the ground, but when I struck bottom I hadn’t 
nothin’ on but what a fellow is born with, except one old 
deer-skin shoe. The rest of my riggin’ hung along in 
patches, from the crotch of that old tree all the way down to 
the roots ! 

u That arternoon the old 'woman and the three children had 
all them hickory nuts hulled clean, and they measured about 
five bushel. The next day a tradin’ scow came down the 
Wabash for New Orleans, and tied up on shore near our 
cabin, to get wood. We got a dollar and a quarter a bushel 
for them nuts, in trade, and laid in a stock that kept our 
mouths a going for a month.” 

Here the Old Settler held up a moment, and fastened his 
sharp blue eyes upon my face, as if to read therein the 
amount of credulity, or degree of patience, with which his 
story was received. To tell the truth, and in spite of my 
previous indignation at his persistent annoyance, I had in- 
voluntarily become interested in his preposterous relation. 
Observing this he resumed, with an evident expression of 
satisfaction : 

“ Well, mister, what with pork and mollasses, and batter 
cakes fried in coon fat, I soon begun to pick up a little, and 
in less than a matter of two weeks the agee sort a gin out, 
and I could do a little potterin’ about the clearin’, and things 
seemed to look as if I was a goin’ to come around all right 
agin. 

“ My wife had a kind o’ hankerin’ arter religion, though she 
hed never jined the church. Her mother hed been a sort of 


124 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE u OLD SETTLER.” 

a Methodist, and though the old woman hed hed a mighty 
hard time of it with a wuthless drunken husband, she died 
happy, a prayin’ of the Lord. 

“ So my wife sed to me one day, 1 Pete/ sed she, ‘ you 
ought to be thankful that the Good Man has heered my pray- 
ers, and raised you, as it were, from the dead. There is a big 
revival a goin’ on at the little church over to Squattersville, 
and let’s you and me go to-night, and who knows but what 
we may both git the blessin’ ? 

“ Well, I hedn’t hed a real genewine shake in four days; 
and so to please my wife, who was about the right kind of a 
critter arter all, if she did let that tongue of hern git rather 
loose sometimes, I told her I reckoned we’d better go, and see 
how the thing would work. 

“ And so when night come, I wrapped my old army blankit 
around my clothes — for I was patched from top to bottom, 
and really ashamed to be seen by meetin’ folks : — and away 
we went, the old woman a marchin’ ahead, and I a follerin’ 
arter her. 

u When we got there, the service was jist commencin’ and 
the minister guv out a tex, and sed : ‘ What cum ye out fur 
to see ; a reed shakin’ by the wind ? ’ 

“ Now, stranger, mebbee I was wrong, but this sort a riled me. 
He looked right at me when he sed it, and I kinder thought 
it was a slur at my agee, which hed made me nearly as slim 
as a reed, and which the Lord knows I couldn’t help. My 
wife seed I was gittin’ mad like, and she pinched me to 
keep still. 

“ Well, in about fifteen minutes, as true as I’m a livin’ sin- 
ner, I felt the agee cornin’ on me all to once, with a full head 
of steam ! I tried to put on the brakes, but the durn’d 
thing was on the down grade, and was bound to make up 
fur the four days lost time. And the minister' kept all the 


ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 125 

time a yellin’ out, ‘ What cum ye out fur to see ; a reed shakin’ 
by the wind f ’ 

“At last I hed to jist lay down in the pew and let her rip ! 
The old woman was scared nearly to death, and tried to git 
me up to take me out. But every time she tuck holt of me, 
I shook her hands off agin the side of the pew until every- 
thing cracked agin. 

“ The thing kept a gittin’ wus and wus. Bimeby the 
house begin to shake, and the folks stared around, frightened 
like. Soon half the people fell down upon their knees and 
prayed for mercy. The preacher shouted louder than ever : 
‘ What eum ye out fur to see ; a reed shakin’ by the wind f ’ 
and sed thet the c Lord wuz in the work ! ’ 

“At last the chimbly — which the morter must hev been a 
gittin’ a leetle rottin — cum a rattlin’ down upon the ruff ; and 
then the screamin’ was awful among the wimmin and children, 
jist as ef they thought a passel of reglar wild Injins was 
around, a gunnin’ fur scalps. 

“ Well, the minister was a good man, but he couldn’t stand 
everything. When the chimbly kim a tearin’ down, he jist 
jumped out over the top of the pulpit, and hollered : 

“ ‘ Breetherin’, truly has Satan power on this yearth ! ’ 
And then he broke fur the door, with the hull crowd a fol- 
lerin’, and screechin’ like mad. 

“ All to once Deacon Spooner happened to spy me a lay in* 
on the floor as he ran by, and he stopped and sung out : 

“ ‘ Breethering and sistern, don’t be skeert. It’s nobody 
but Pete Higgins, a shakin’ with the Wabash agee! ’ 

“ But the meetin’ was busted up fur that night, and so was 
the revival fur the hull season. 

“ The old woman sort o’ cussed me all the way home, jist 
as ef I could help it. But she was so ashamed to think what 
the hull neighborhood would say, that it made her onreason- 


126 ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

able like, and. as soon as her cussin’ feelin’s hed cooled off, she 
cried, and sed she was a fool, and that it was all her fault fur 
askin’ of me to go. 

“ And now, mister,” resumed the narrator of this strange 
story, after a few furtive glances at my countenance, “ is it 
enny ways strange that I got riled when you tried to poke that 
yankee bummer’s book onto me, about his little agee ! I don’t 
know much in the way of lamin’, but there aint no livin’ 
man what kin give me a new wrinkle about the shakes.” 

And thus saying, the Old Settler shouldered his rifle, and 
with something of an injured and defiant air, strode out into 
the storm. 

But the inspiration of the romance I had attempted went 
out long before he did, and may now be scored among things 
lost to earth. 


THE VISION. 


I AM sitting alone, my deary — 

Alone, and the rain patters down, 

The world on the outside is dreary, 

And thick clouds hang over the town ; 

My pencil goes over the paper, 

My heart beats the bars of its cage, 

And the light from the shade of my taper 
Shows a tear-drop or so on my page. 

A feeling of sadness comes o’er me — 

A weakness of memories dear, 

For the past, summoned up now before me, 
Sits you by the side of me here; 

The light of your dark eye is gleaming, 

In mine with the love it once bore, 

And the years from the mist of my dreaming, 
Loom up from eternity’s shore. 

Thy hand in my own, my once dearest — 

Thy kiss once again on my brow ; 

Come closer; what is it thou fearest? 

The danger is passed with us now: 

The faith you once swore is now broken, 

And we in the world are alone — 

And the words that can never be spoken 
Die out in my heart with a moan. 

But yet with the vision I linger, 

Its shadowy form by my side — 

The ring that I gave, on its finger, 

With the bud in its hair of a bride. 

It fades as my arms reach to clasp it — 

It slowly dissolves into air, 

And the hope that went out to grasp it, 

Gives place to the gloom of despair! 


128 


JANE JERUSHA SKEGGS. 


I am sitting alone now, my deary — 

Alone, and the rain patters down, 

The world in the darkness is dreary, 

And footsteps have ceased in the town ; 

My pencil glides over the paper, 

My heart beats the bars of its cage, 

And the glow through the shade of my taper 
Repeals a tear-drop on my page. 


JANE JERUSHA SKEGGS. 


[The following nonsensical, but rather amusing verses, I 
wrote many years ago, for the Trenton True American . I 
never heard of their being copied in any other journal in this 
country, but about five years afterward they came back across 
the Atlantic, in a London periodical called “ The Ladies 
Own,” as original. Of course they then went the u grand 
rounds ” in the land of their birth. Truly a “ poet,” like a 
prophet, has no honor in his own country.] 

I T is many years since I fell in love 
With Jane Jerusha Skeggs, 

The prettiest piece of calico. 

That ever went upon legs. 

By meadow, and creek, and wood, and dell, 

So often we did walk ! 

And the moonlight smiled on her tempting lips, 

And the night winds learned our talk ! 

Jane Jerusha was all to me, 

For my heart was young and true, 

And I loved with a double and twisted love, 

And a love that was honest, too ! 


JANE JERUSHA SKEGGS. 


129 


I roamed all over the neighbors’ farms, 

And robbed the wildwood bowers, 

And tore my trousers and scratched my hands, 
In search of the fairest flowers! 

In my holy love I brought all these, 

To my Jerusha Jane, 

But I wouldn’t be so foolish now, 

If I was a boy again ! 

A city chap came along one day, 

All dressed up in store clothes. 

With a shiny hat and a shiny vest, 

And a mustache , under his nose ! 

He asked her to go to singing school, 

(For her father owned a farm,) 

And she left me, her country love, 

And took the new chap’s arm ! 

And all that night I never slept, 

Nor could I eat next day, 

For I loved that girl with a fervent love, 

That nought could drive away ! 

I strove to win her back to me, 

But it was all in vain ; 

The city chap with the hairy lip, 

Married Jerusha Jane ! 

And my poor heart was sick and sore, 

Until the thought struck me, 

That just as good fish still remained, 

As those caught in the sea ! 

So I went to Methodist Church one night, 

And saw a dark brown curl, 

Peeping out from under a gypsy hat — 

Well, I married that very girl ! 

And many years have come and gone, 

And I think my loss my gain, 

And I often bless that hairy chap, 

Who stole Jerusha Jane! 


A TWO DOLLAR VISIT FROM THE “OLD 
SETTLER.” 


I WAS really pleased to see him this time. He had been 
working in a lumber camp up on the Pere Marquette for 
six weeks past, and had come home to keep Christmas. 
Being about my only visiting neighbor, I felt his long absence 
to be a deprivation. The most unpromising companionship 
is a relief to one’s loneliness in these regions, in the long 
winter season, when the deep snow coops one up in his cabin, 
with no resources either of amusement or labor. And so I 
gave him a truly cordial greeting, as he stepped over my 
threshold, and with a genial smile illuminating his rugged 
features, wished me a “ Merry Christmas, neighbor !” 

After relating to me some of his trivial adventures in the 
woods during the winter, the Old Settler stepped to a corner 
of the cabin, picked up my beautiful “ Wesson” rifle, and 
examined it critically. 

“ This ’ere gun of yourn,” he remarked, “ is a pretty thing 
to look at, but aint of no airthly account up this way. It 
carries about three hundred to the pound, and you might put 
fifty of them little blue pills into a right fat bear without 
tetchin’ a wital part. A good stiff side wind would wary 
one of them balls six inches to the twenty rod. It may be a 
nice enough plaything for children, to them as kin afford it, 
but for real shootin’ it ain’t worth the powder to blow it to 

j” 


I apologized for the offending weapon, on the ground that 


A TWO DOLLAR VISIT FROM THE “ OLD SETTLER.” 131 

it was used in the East simply for target practice among 
fancy sportsmen. 

After a few minutes more spent in ordinary conversation, I 
managed to get the Old Settler upon the subject of his inter- 
esting experiences as a hunter in these wilds, one or two of* 
which I have concluded to preserve in this volume. 

“ About ten years ago, neighbor,” he commenced, “ there 
was a store clothes feller cum in here from Shikago for a hunt. 
His father owned the shingle mill at Pentwater, and that’s 
the way he happened to drift into these parts. As mine was 
the only cabin on the Pint, he hed to bunk in with me. He 
lied plenty of money, and was to pay me two dollars a day 
for my old. jackass and me to go a hunting with him. 
Neighbor Bord, the woods was full of deer in them days, and 
we hed a way of huntin’ ’em at nights, which is called 
* shinin’ their eyes.’ I kin ony ’splain it to you this way. 
Ef you ever looked under a house, or a barn, when there was 
a cat, or a skunk, or any such varmint under there in the 
dark, you could see nothin’ ony two great shiney eyes, what 
looked like balls of fire. 

“ Well, us hunters used to go out in the woods a nights, 
hevin’ a long handle fryin’ pan, and when we got to the 
right place we would light a fire in the pan, and one feller 
would carry it around on his shoulder, while the rest on us 
would foller on behind, with our rifles ready in our hands. 
As soon as we cum near a deer, the cuss would stop, aston- 
ished like, and look right at the blaze. Then we could see 
two great eyes shinin’ in the darkness, and takin’ aim right 
between them, was almost sartin to kill. We always tuck 
my old jackass, which I brought out with me from Injeeana, 
along, to bring home the deer, ef we shot enny. 

“ Well, the fust night me and the store clothes feller, and 
the jackass, went out, this wus what happened : Of course 


132 A TWO DOLLAR VISIT FROM THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

he wanted to do the shooting and so I hed to carry the pan. 
When we got to the feedin’ ground, we tied the jackass to a 
tree, lit our fire, and took a circle around. We hed pushed 
around for ten minutes or so, when all to wunst the store 
^clothes feller sung out ‘ stop !’ I looked up, and there within 
ten paces was two great starin’ balls of fire. I know’d what it 
all ment at the fust glance, but before I could holler for him 
to hold on, < bang !’ went his durned old musket, and let out 
about a handful of buckshot ! There was one onairthly bray, 
that fairly shook the trees all around, and made the air shud- 
der like, and when I run up, there lay my poor old jackass, 
a kickin’ of his last kick ! 

“ Well, neighbor, I cussed that feller out of seventy-five 
dollars for that jackasfe, which he wusn’t wuth twenty, but 
then I was so infarnally mad that I didn’t adzacly know 
what I was doin’. He left next mornin’ at daylight, and 
I’ve never heern tell on him since.” 

I laughed heartily, at the climax of this story, and the 
“ Old Settler ” seemed mightily tickled at the way I enjoyed 
it. I stepped to the closet and handed him three or four first 
rate Havana segars, and invited him to take a smoke. He 
accepted them with an expression of thanks, craunched them 
up fine in his huge paw, consigned the mass to his tobacco 
pouch, filled a short dirty pipe, and puffed away a few mo- 
ments in silence. At last he said : 

“ I b’lieve I never told you about shootin’ that bear, two 
years ago last winter ? I told it to a newspaper chap what I 
met at a tavern down to Grand Rapids, and he said he would 
put it in print, and send me a paper, but I reckon he must hev 
forgot. Leastwise I never heerd anything from him since. 

“ One day I was a burnin’ brush in the clearin’, when I 
seed about a thousand crows, a dartin’ in and out of the top 
of a big hemlock, and keepin’ up the awfullest squallin’ you 


A TWO DOLLAR VISIT FROM THE U OLD SETTLER.” 133 

ever heerd. I to wunst knowed there was somethin’ up 
more’n common. And so I picked up my gun — and I’ve got 
the same gun yit — and started for the tree. I worked around 
among the bushes ontil I got within about twenty rod of 
where the rumpus was, and on peepin’ out, sure enough there 
sot up in the highest crotch, an all fired big bear, a real four 
hundred pounder. Fust one crow would dart in on him, and 
then a half a dozen would foller, and he kept a boxin’ at ’em 
right and left, as savage as a wild Ingin. The bear was so 
busy a watchin’ and fightin’ them crows, which kept up the 
cussedest noise all the time, that he never looked anywhere 
else. I crawled up to about eight rod of the tree, the bear 
all the time a strikin’ out, fust at one crow, and then at 
another, without ever wunst suspectin’ of any other danger. 
Bime by I got tired of watchin’ the fun, and so I took aim 
jist below the old feller’s shoulder, and tetched the hair 
trigger ! You ought’er seen him come down, head foremost, 
all in heap like ! He din’nt even kick nary time after he 
struck the ground. And, mister, that durned fool of a hear 
thinks to this day it was them crows what killed him ! And 
I’ve got the same gun yit !” 

At the conclusion of this interesting recital, the “Old 
Settler” started up and declared that he must be going. As 
he reached the door he stopped,’ turned around, put his hand 
searchingly in his pocket, and exclaimed : 

“ O, mister, I lik’d to hev forgot. I borrered three dollars 
off of you to pay my taxes. I’ve got a five dollar bill here, 
and ef you’ll jist hand me the change we’ll settle that little 
matter.” 

Delighted at this exhibition of unexpected honesty, on the 
part of one I had so mistrusted, I opened my pocket-book, 
and at once handed him the two dollars. He grabbed the 
amount with one hand, and continued to fumble in his 


134 A TWO DOLLAR VISIT FROM THE “OLD SETTLER.” 

pockets with the other. A last he turned a worried and 
perplexed look upon me, scratched his shaggy head, and said : 

“Dura my skin ef my old woman hain’t and went and 
tuck that five dollar bill out of my pocket when she was a 
mendin’ of my coat this mornin’ ! But never mind, neighbor. 
I’ll be along agin in a day or two, and step in and hand it to 
you. But I don’t like sich tricks, and when I git to home, 
I’ll be apt to raise particular thunder around the cabin, mind 
I tell you ! I don’t keer so much about it, ony for the looks 
of the thing. It’s mortifyin’ to be fooled in this way, but 
I’ll make it all right when I cum a long next time !” 

And so saying the “Old Settler” shook his head two or 
three times, indignantly, at the thought of the trick his “old 
woman ” had played upon him, and walked off two dollars 
richer then when he entered. He hasn’t found it convenient 
to call with that five dollar bill yet ! 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


A TALE OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 


* 6 T KNOW pretty much all about it,” said the hunter, 
JL “ and if you wish to hear the story, we will sit down 
upon this old hemlock log while I relate it.” 

We had been on the trail of a herd of deer all day, with- 
out being able to secure a shot, when late in the afternoon we 
came upon a log cabin within sight of the shores of Lake 
Michigan. The low roof had fallen in, the blackberry and 
the raspberry had rooted in the earth between the logs, and 
decay and dilapidation marked all its immediate surround- 
ings. But there were faint traces of former flower beds be- 
fore the door, and here and there a vine of beauty and of 
bloom struggled through the thick weeds, and entwined 
themselves around the solitary ruins. A woman of taste and 
culture had evidently planted and tended these, and it was 
the conviction of this fact, so rare in this lonely wilderness, 
that prompted me to ask the hunter if he knew ought of its 
history. His response is the commencement of this tale, and 
he continued as follows : 

“It was twenty years ago — long before the cabin of a 
single white settler had been built upon the lake shore, all 
the way between Pentwater and Grand Haven — when I first 
saw this cabin. Chippewa and Ottawa Indians held all the 
vast country between White River and Lake Superior, and 
roamed these forests in pursuit of game. Father and I had 
been up in the Grand Traverse country trapping otter and 


136 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


shooting deer and bear. Early in the spring we loaded the 
canoe with onr peltries, and commenced paddling along the 
the lake shore for Chicago, three hundred miles distant. 
Toward evening on the fourth day down, a tremendous blow 
came up out of the northwest. In the far distance we could 
see the huge waves bearing down upon us, the first one of 
which would have dashed us to destruction the moment it 
reached our little vessel. But we were but about twenty pad- 
dle strokes from the shore, and we soon had our boat and its 
treasures high up on the sandy beach. 

“ Stranger, did you ever see old Michigan when angered by 
a hurricane ? Well, it’s a bully thing to look upon from a 
land point, but woe to' the ships and sailors who are then 
upon its waters ! The treacherous old termagant is peaceful 
now, and her bosom heaves as gently as that of an infant in 
its slumbers. I have seen it thus a hundred times, and then 
within an hour it would begin to seethe, and boil, and foam, 
all the waters of its great depths seeming to be scooped up 
into mountains, and hurled one at the other by the winds in 
their fury. I have seen the clouds come down until they 
formed a perpendicular wall, whose base rested upon the 
waters and its summit against the sky. And all along, where 
it rested upon the lake, it was broken into great caverns, 
whose horrid mouths looked like the black entrances to 
eternal perdition. And all this comes with but a moment of 
preliminary warning, and that is the reason why old Mich- 
igan swallows up more vessels yearly than the Atlantic - and 
Pacific oceans combined, and the dead of her mighty depths 
are skeletoned from Mackinaw to Chicago. You may walk 
her eastern shore for two hundred miles with a wreck always 
in sight. But I am running away from my story. 

“ Well, on securing our canoe we walked around and soon 
discovered a wreath of smoke curling up from among the 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


137 


dark hemlocks of the dense forest that lined the coast. We 
took it for granted that this was an encampment of Indian 
hunters ; but as the Chippewas and Ottawas have always 
been treated kindly by our people, we had no fears for the 
safety of ourselves or property. So w T e pushed at once in the 
direction of the smoke, and in less than ten minutes came 
upon this very cabin, whose silent ruins are now before us. 

“ A huge deerhound offered a snarling resistance to our 
approach, which brought to the door a man and a woman, 
whose appearance startled me into a sort of awe, so strangely 
different were they from any human beings I had ever looked 
upon before. 

“ I was but twelve years of age, born in the wilderness, 
and had never seen any other kind of people than the rude 
white and red hunters on the outer verge of civilization. 
The man was apparently about twenty-five years of age, with 
fair complexion, dark hair and eyes, heavy mustache, and the 
rest of his face cleanly shaven. His clothes were of fine 
texture, wonderfully neat, and fitted to his well-built form in 
a manner that excited my wonder and astonishment. He 
wore a ring upon his finger that sent forth dazzling flashes of 
light, and a heavy gold chain led from a vest button-hole to 
his watch pocket. 

u The woman could not have been over eighteen, and her 
glossy brown hair fell carelessly down about a face of such 
wonderful beauty, so sad and yet so resigned, that as I gazed 
a feeling: came over me as if I had been in the instant trans- 
lated to another world. I had heard an old Catholic mis- 
sionary among the Indians of the Pere Marquette country 
describe the saints and angels of Heaven, and now before me 
was a realization of what he had drawn. Boy as I was, 
whose little life had been passed in the woods among the 
most reckless and desperate men, and who never knew a 

i 


138 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


mother’s tenderness nor a sister’s love, a holy feeling of 
prayer and worship flowed into my soul as I looked upon the 
vision before me. 

“ My father was an ignorant man — could neither read nor 
write — but as brave and fearless of danger as any one that 
ever lived. He had seen his father and mother killed and 
scalped by the Iroquois of Canada, and was himself hurried 
off into captivity by the band, and remained three years with 
the devils before opportunity for escape was presented. 

“ In the woods every man’s cabin is every other man’s 
home, be he comrade or stranger, to enter without knocking, 
remain without invitation, and depart without thanks. But 
the old man was painfully abashed in the presence of these 
superior beings. On the invitation to enter, kindly and hos- 
pitably spoken, he awkwardly snatched off his coonskin cap, 
made a most ridiculous attempt at a bow to the lady, tried to 
hide his rifle behind him as though it w r as out of place in 
such company, and behaved in so grotesque a manner, that, 
forgetting my own awe for a moment, I burst out in a peal 
of laughter. The young lady comprehended the cause at 
once, caught the contagion, and in spite of every effort at 
restraint, added her own silvery strains of mirth to the hila- 
rious temptation. This instantly brought my father back to 
his independent manhood, and giving me a look that plainly 
presaged my future punishment, strode erect and confident 
into the cabin. 

“ After supper the stranger took father out into the little 
clearing to ask his opinion about some contemplated improve- 
ment. As soon as they were gone, the lady came and sat 
down by me, and plied me with questions all about my his- 
tory, mode of life, and future intentions. As I look at these 
crumbling logs, so silent and yet so full of speech to me, I 
fancy I can see her as she sat right in yonder corner, twenty 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


139 


years ago, with her dark blue eyes fastened upon my boyish 
face, so full of a tender interest I could not understand, while 
her sweet womanly voice — so unlike anything I had ever 
heard or fancied — poured forth the consolations of a sympa- 
thy I had never known from a human being before. Stranger, 
you are looking ; at my eyes, I am not ashamed of their 
moisture. 

“ On the return of father and the stranger, the lady ap- 
proached the latter and said : 

“ ‘ George, I want you to go out and fasten up that jessa- 
mine for me. The wind is abroad upon the lake and will be 
here in all its fury soon. The gentlemen will please remain 
until we return 

“ They were gone perhaps ten minutes. On re-entering 
the cabin, the man at once asked father if he would let me 
remain with them for one year. He expected to be away 
a good part of the time, and needed some one to do the little 
work required during his absence. He could not think of 
leaving his wife all alone in such a place. He would pay 
well for the service. Then the lady came up, and putting 
her beautiful little hand upon father's huge shoulder, and 
looking up into his hard, brown face, with a smile that could 
win anything without words, said : 

You will let the lad stay with me , please, sir? ' 

u My father was rough on me sometimes, for his had been 
a hard life, and he was very easily angered. Once when I 
missed a bear at fifteen rod, he ran at me, and with his flat 
hand struck me on the side of the head, and sent me sprawl- 
ing to the ground fully ten feet from him. And then the 
flash of his resentment went out in shame and repentance^ 
and he hastened to me, and gathered me up in his great arms, 
and pressed me to his bosom, and cried, and cursed himself 


140 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


for a cowardly villain. My father loved me. He had noth- 
ing else to love. 

“ When the girl made this appeal, the man stepped up, 
and taking a handful of gold from his pocket, said : 

“ ‘ I will give you one hundred dollars for the boy’s ser- 
vices for one year, and will pay you right here in advance.’ 

“ My father drew himself up with a dignity and haughti- 
ness I had never seen him exhibit before. 

“ ‘ I will not sell my child,’ he replied, * for all the gold 
that "was either honestly or dishonestly come by. I have tried 
to say no to this woman, but cannot. I am an ignorant man, 
and have always lived in the woods. But I know that this 
is no place for her, and that she is troubled at heart. The 
boy may remain, but neither he nor me will touch your 
money. He can earn nothing here but his food and clothing. 
To her care I leave him.’ 

“ The man turned pale at this speech, and his brow dark- 
ened, but he said nothing. My father looked him steadily in 
the eye for a full minute, turned slowly around, shouldered 
his rifle, and without looking at me, or bidding us good-bye, 
strode out into the forest in the direction of the lake, and I 
never saw him more. I may tell you of his tragic death on 
some other occasion. 

“ My new situation gave me new ideas of life, and awak- 
ened in me an ambition that had never before entered into 
my thoughts. The lady loved me as if I was a lost brother, 
unexpectedly restored. I feel certain now that when she first 
saw me she traced a resemblence to some dear one in her old 
home in the far east. She soon taught me to read and write ; 
talked to me of the lowly born and neglected who had risen 
from obscurity in her own land, and won by the force of 
their genius wealth, fame, power, and the respect of a nation. 
My youthful mind drank with eagerness at this new fountain. 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


141 


She had books of the lives of statesmen, of the discoveries of 
science, the theories of philosophers, the musings of poets. 
Boy that I was, with a mind heretofore tutored only to the 
chase, many of these things bewildered me, but I felt that 
my intellect was being strengthened by the discipline of 
thought, and I thirsted for further discoveries in the world of 
knowledge. My preceptress was overjoyed at my progress. 
Poor soul ; — but few so good, so beautiful, so patient in a 
hidden sorrow, ever so needed one source of happiness. 

“ She never spoke to me of the past, and never uttered any 
complainings of the present. The man was very kind and 
loving toward her, but I knew that he had wronged her in 
some way, and I fairly hated him under this suspicion. 
Many and many a time have I caught her in tears, which she 
vainly strove to hide, and I often felt my own heart breaking 
over a sorrow I could not comprehend or alleviate. 

“ I have said these two cultivated beings, evidently of some 
great city, but now isolated in a cold and inhospitable wilder- 
ness as if they alone were the inhabitants of the world, loved 
each other. If you had seen them as I did, walking in the 
forest paths, or along the beach of the mighty lake when the 
summer moon was at its full, with the soft waves breaking 
mournfully but musically at their feet, you would have wit- 
nessed those sweet and tender endearments that are born only 
of love in young hearts, ere years and the realities of life 
harden into formality and selfishness. 

“ I had been in my new home about six months, when the 
man began to absent himself at longer and longer periods, 
often remaining away two weeks at a time. And the poor 
lady would do nothing but weep when the day of his ap- 
pointed return passed without his coming. She grew thin 
and haggard, and a strange light began to gleam in her eyes. 
For on each return the man became more and more gloomy, 


142 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


and at times his irritation vented itself in harshness to the 
being he called wife. 

“ It was early in September, toward the close of a lovely 
day, when the man walked into the cabin from an unusually 
long absence, and sat down moodily, with scarce a word of 
recognition to either of us. The girl staggered toward him, 
fell upon her knees, and clasping her arms about his neck, 
while her wealth of hair almost buried his face and fell upon 
his shoulders, sobbed like one lost to all hope. The man 
rudely loosened her loving clasp, and arose to his feet. She 
lowered her head upon the vacated chair for a moment, sprang 
up, placed her hands upon his shoulders, and putting her 
sweet face close to his, said, in a low, soft, tremulous voice : 

“ ‘ Walter Danton, take me home to my mother ! ’ 

“ The man again repulsed her, and this time with an oath. 

“ ‘ Then I will go alone ! ’ she exclaimed, and in her loose 
white dress, and all bonnetless, she turned and passed out 
over the threshold for the last time. I noticed the wild 
gleam in her eye as she went forth, and my heart stood still 
with terror. 

“ Fifteen minutes passed, when the man went to the door 
and peered uneasily around. 

“ ‘ Great God of mercy ! ? he fairly shrieked, ‘ she is gone ! ’ 

“ And then he shouted ‘ Mary ! Mary ! , and the hollow 
echoes sent back the words in mockery of his agony. 

“And now, like a madman, he started for the lake. I 
followed in the instant, but he far outstripped me in the race. 
When I reached the edge of the forest I looked out upon the 
placid bosom of the waters. A quarter of a mile from shore 
was a skiff, whose sail had caught the breeze, and was mak- 
ing rapid headway. A white form stood erect in the stern, 
and waved a handkerchief in farewell to an object on the 
shore. I rushed down. Danton was on his knees, shrieking 

' o 


THE DESERTED CABIN. 


143 


most piteously for the occupant of the boat to return. Then 
he ran out into the water, both arms raised imploringly, pray- 
ing and blaspheming in his wild delirium. 

u At this instant the boat of a fisherman rounded the point. 
The madman dashed toward it, dragged the old man out 
into the shallow water, flung himself into the skiff, and set 
its prow towards the receding object. 

“ The long level rays of the setting sun flashed upon the 
smooth waters, and lit up the scene with terrible distinctness. 
Drawn against the horizon of the wide waters was the ghostly 
form of the woman, still erect in the frail vessel, and the pur- 
suer could be seen making frantic efforts to lessen the distance 
between them, while his imploring cries still reached us from 
the distance. The sun went down, and the twilight came on. 
The foremost boat was swallowed up in the gloom and the 
shadows, and the pursuing one was soon lost in the advancing 
darkness. 

“ ‘It is a good hundred miles across to the Wisconsin 
shore/ said the fisherman, ‘ and the wind is coming down out 
of the north. Neither that man nor that woman will ever be 
seen alive again/ 

“ And they never were, nor dead either. 

“ And ever on the anniversary of that night, the fishermen 
say a skiff is seen far out upon the waters, with a white form 
erect in its bow, waving a farewell to a man who is making 
frantic gestures from the shore. 

“ And now, that my story is ended,” said the hunter, in a 
husky voice, “ we will push on for the licks.” 


I MEET MY FIRST “ IN GIN.” 


Lo! the poor Indian whose untutored mind, 

Takes whiskey “ straight,” and “goes it” till he’s blind ! 

[ Essayed by Pope.] 

I N this our broad county of Oceana, there can be found 
at this writing nearly two thousand Indians — the rem- 
nants of the Avar like tribes Avho once occupied all the regions 
of the great lakes, and whose history is so stained with horri- 
ble atrocities upon the earlier white settlers. My cabin 
stands right in the locality where Tecumseh, and Pontiac, his 
brother and prophet of the tribe, rallied the red Avarriors of 
the Avilderness for a last struggle against the steady adA^ances 
of the AAdrite invader. There is an old Indian trapper iioav 
living at Pere Marquette, in the county adjoining us on 
the north, Avho made one of the expedition that had such 
a fatal termination at the battle of the Thames, in what 
is noAv the State of Indiana. Col. Richard M. Johnson, 
after Avards Vice-President of the United States, commanded a 
regiment of Kentucky mounted rifles in that bloody struggle 
and slew Tecumseh in a hand-to-hand encounter. The facts 
of this incident of the battle may be of interest to our younger 
readers. 

It Avas toward the close of that fearful contest, Avhen the 
centre of the British order of battle had been broken by a 
desperate charge of Col. Johnson’s regiment, and the demor- 
alized Indian allies on either AAung had fled and took to the 
woods, and got behind trees to fight in their oavii fashion, that 
Tecumseh met his fate. Johnson was desperately Avounded 


I MEET MY FIRST “iNGIN.” 


145 


in the victorious charge, and the splendid blooded mare he 
rode was fairly riddled with bullets. The brave Colonel, 
feeling her reeling under him, turned her head toward a fallen 
tree, when in rounding the top he found himself confronted 
by a stalwart savage, whose painted face was rendered more 
hideous by the blood that streamed down from a deep sword 
gash on the top of his uncovered head. The chieftain was in 
the act of ramming down a bullet when the two confronted 
each other, but the weapon had become so fouled from frequent 
discharges during the battle that the ball could not be sent 
home. The savage threw the rifle from him, and with a yell 
of hate and rage that would have paralyzed the nerves of a 
less brave antagonist, seized his tomahawk and hurled it at 
his enemy. But at the same instant Col. Johnson snatched 
his remaining pistol from its holster, and pulled the trigger 
full at the broad breast of the herculean warrior. Tecum- 
seh, who was making a dash for his enemy, stopped, stag- 
gered for a instant, stooped down, groping blindly for his rifle, 
then drew his majestic form up straight to the perpendicular, 
uttered a loud yell of defiance, sprang upward into the air, 
and came down upon his face — dead. At the same instant 
the gallant mare sank slowly upon her haunches, swayed a 
moment, and rolled over with her rider, and died with a few 
feeble struggles. It was afterwards ascertained that she was 
pierced with sixteen bullets. 

The tomahawk of the Indian had struck Col. Johnson be- 
tween the thumb and forefinger of his bridle hand, and crip- 
pled it for life. With his other wounds, he was now helpless, 
and lay beside his dead favorite, until discovered by some of 
his men, and carried off the field of carnage. 

It seems, my beloved, though possibly indignant reader, 
that I can never keep this erratic brain of mine to its pre- 
scribed and appointed task. When I sat down to my rough 


146 I MEET MY FIRST “iNGIN.” 

pine table a few minutes since to indite this sketch, I had no 
thought that my poor pen would scribble itself into the his- 
torical incident it has just recorded from memory. I inked 
it with a view to humor. It has strayed into a foughten field, 
and returned in blood. 

Did you ever know a man, however deficient in voice or 
tune, who did not rather incline to the opinion that he was a 
pretty fair singer ? He may so far doubt his endowment in 
the gift musical as to avoid experimenting in public, and to 
decline importunities to vocalize for the entertainment of a 
social party ; but when that chap gets by himself in the soli- 
tude, where no man is, or is not suspected to be, he will give 
mouth to some favorite song of his, until the echoes mock 
him back in agony. I have been caught myself in the delu- 
sion that there was no listener, when a man, or a woman, or 
both together, would turn a clump of bushes suddenly upon 
me, and then for the first time a sense of the horrible discord 
I was forcing into the surrounding space would assail my bet- 
ter judgment, and mortification would set in at once. To be 
honest with you, the subscriber can neither sing or whistle 
the simplest tune to save his life, or his beloved country from 
a war with Spain. But in the weakness of his vanity he has 
at times thought otherwise, been caught in the act, paid the 
penalty in the derision of involuntary listeners, and the fol- 
lowing incident is a case in point : 

One day in the early October of the past year, when the 
first kiss of the dainty frost spirit had caused a crimson blush 
to overspread the fair face of the maple by my window, and 
the beeches in the ravine below turned yellow with envy, I 
wandered far out into the forest, to enjoy the luxurious lassi- 
tude which is nowhere so soothing as in the wilderness soli- 
tude by the northern waters of Lake Michigan. The winds 
had retired to their caves, the trees stood transfixed in the 


I MEET MY FIRST “iNGIN.” 


147 


breezeless silence, and not a leaf showed the pulsation of 
life. I leaned against a huge hemlock, that was first rooted 
centuries before Columbus unfolded his dreams of a New 
World to Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand of Spain. The magnifi- 
cent magnitude of my dear country stole gradually into my 
meditations, and as my patriotism began to swell, and fret, 
and foam for outward expression, I seized, with a fearful 
roar, “ The Sword of Bunker Hill,” and knocked the solemn 
silence into fits in an instant. 

I had got about half through this melodious tribute of 
gratitude to our “ patriot sires and grandsires hoary,” when 
I heard a voice, saying : 

“ My white brother sings like a government mule ! ” 

No bullfrog ever cut short his hoarse croakings quicker, at 
the sudden descent of a schoolboy’s brickbat, than did the 
singer — I myself — at this frightful interruption ! In much 
trepidation, I turned my head, and there, within ten feet, 
stood a vision whose appearance was enough to startle a 
strong minded woman — or any other man — from the inhe- 
rent courage of his nature. Lo! a poor Ingun stood before 
me, in all the panoply of a red warrior of the wilderness ! 

But the chieftain did not exactly realize my idea of the 
traditional Indian I had read of in my earlier days of youth 
and romance, of whom Cooper’s aboriginal heroes were the 
types. On the contrary quite the reverse. This Lo’s appear- 
ance would hardly do for high. His coat looked as if he was 
on the way to a paper mill. His shirt looked as if it had 
been washed in a swill barrel and dried on a gridiron. There 
had evidently been divers and sundry quilting frolics on 
the seat of his breeches. There was an irruption of black, 
bristly hair out of the crater of his crownless hat. In shorty 
all his externals indicated the gentleman and the scholar, and 
a man who had seen better days. 


148 I MEET MY FIRST “iNGIN.” 

Forcing an easiness of manner that I was far from feeling, 
I approached the apparition, and extending my hand ex- 
claimed : 

“ Philosopher of the woods, how fares it with thee to-day?” 

*• The chieftain round him drew his cloak, (only he hadn’t any,) 
Folded his arms and thus he spoke : ” 

“ White man, if you call me a grasshopper of the woods, 
Ingun put a head on you ! ” 

I was a mile from home, and unarmed. The offended 
chieftain held a rifle in one hand, and a recently killed skunk 
in the other. My offence was rank, and smelled to Heaven. 

So did the skunk. 

I do not think I would have blanched before his rifle, for 
I had been a warrior myself, per a six hundred dollar substi- 
tute, in the war of the rebellion. But the sight of that 
skunk, and the odor in which he was enpanoplied, suggested 
diplomacy. A happy precedent had been elaborated by 
divers of the present congress. I will try a little credit mo - 
bilier upon this representative of his people. 

With me, action follows resolve, even as the thunder booms 
upon the lightning. I drew forth my pipe, matches, and 
tobacco pouch. The irate barbarian shook his head, and also 
his skunk likewise. 

Then in my other pocket did I explore, and brought out 
a beautiful four bladed knife. 

I saw a sign of relenting in his dark eye, trimmed though 
it was with lids the edges of which looked like red ferreting- 

He laid down his rifle, but advanced a step nearer with his 
skunk, and swung it around, as I have seen a censor swung 
at a religious ceremony. Only the effect was different. 

If I must die, I preferred the rifle. 


149 


I MEET MY FIRST “iNGIN.” 

But one more credit mobilier argument remained. I pulled 
out my pocket-book, and laid its last greenback upon the 
heap of peace offerings. 

“ It is well,” said the chieftain, as he u raked in the pile/’ 
“ and my white brother can depart in peace to his kindred. 
The wife of Come-It-Strong is weeping in his lodge ; for the 
venison is all eaten, and the fire-water is as the early dew 
which the sun drinketh up, and it is not. The gifts of my 
white brother are to my heart like the strong drink that com- 
eth from Chicago, and which eateth through the staves of the 
barrel.” 

Overcome by his unwonted emotions, the child of Nature 
lifted the skunk to his eyes, 

“ And wiped away a tear ! ” 

He then put straight out into the forest, like a green-tailed 
fly from a sugar house. 

Dearly beloved, your correspondent is not singing so much 
in the woods as he used to ! 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


T any time it was a place to be avoided by persons of 



JL jL average imagination, or superstitious inclinings. But 
it was a very careless or a very courageous foot that would 
willingly enter upon its paths when the night had come 
down upon its natural gloom and unbroken solitude. 

The gorge was not over one hundred feet in width, but 
gazed into from the low ridge on either side, the effect was 
anything but pleasant and inspiring. The great trees that 
grew up from its depths scarcely raised their tops to the outer 
surface, and their density gave a darkness to noonday beneath. 
These trees were all of the gloomy hemlock. The sojourner 
amid the forests of Northern Michigan can now easily under- 
stand the lonely and awe-inspiring features of the gorge into 
which I am attempting to lead my readers. 

It ran parallel to the Great Lake, and but a short distance 
from its moaning and troubled waters. And when the winds 
were out in their fury, and swept through the gorge with ir- 
resistible and invisible wings, the roar that came up from its 
depths, and went out into the surrounding forest, almost 
silenced the great waves that broke upon the adjacent shore. 

Is it any wonder, then, that the traditions of the few scat- 
tered settlers had invested the spot with ghostly disembodied 
spirits, whose shrieks added to the horrors of the midnight 
tempests ? 

The gorge was of easy entrance on the south, but difficult 
of egress on the north. A narrow deer path ran through it ? 
but few were the hunters who cared to tread its dark maze in 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


151 


pursuit of game. The experiment had been tried by one or 
two of the few adventurers who occasionally came down from 
the islands of the upper lake, when the deer and bear had 
been driven southward by the Ottawa and Chippewa bands, 
in their annual expeditions from St. Marie and Huron. But 
it is said that none of such adventurers ever passed out at the 
other extremity, but quickly returned with mortal fear de_ 
picted upon their faces. Even the gaunt, fierce Indian wolf 
dogs came howling out in advance of their retreating masters, 
with blood-shot eyes and piteous whines that told of super- 
natural alarms. 

These facts had been so generally related to me by the set- 
tlers, that at last my ridicule at the idea gave place to a desire 
to learn from some more intelligent source, or by personal ex- 
ploration, the true basis of this local superstition. 

I could not venture alone without danger of getting lost, 
and I was hardly prepared to let any one of my three more 
immediate neighbors into the secret of a curiosity, that argued 
a sort of half-defined credulity of which I was really ashamed. 

And so the matter rested until the beautiful northern sum- 
mer had past, and the early November snows came down 
softly upon the earth, and covered the autumnal leaves with a 
garment of purity and beauty. 

The subject of the gorge and its mystery had almost lost 
their hold upon my curiosity, when one afternoon the hunter 
— he who had told me the story of the deserted cabin — 
chanced to be passing by. I hailed him and he walked in. 
He informed me that he was on his way to the old trapping 
grounds near the head of the lake, on the Wisconsin side, in 
which neighborhood he expected to pass the winter. I in- 
vited him to stay all night and take a fresh start in the morn- 
ing. He modestly accepted the suggestion, observing that he 
had walked about thirty miles since daylight, and as the 


152 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


snow had hidden the smaller logs of the forest, pushing his 
way over and among them was difficult and toilsome work ? 
and that he really felt tired and exhausted. 

In due time a smoking supper of broiled venison and 
roasted potatoes — bread being among one of the occasionals 
of my wilderness home — was ready to be disposed of, and 
with glorious appetites, braced by abstinence since morning^ 
we two drew up to the table, and silently thanking the Giver 
of all good, proceeded to feast upon His bounties. These 
fully indulged in, but without gluttony, prepared us for a 
pleasant evening of social intercourse, and a sound and in- 
vigorating sleep when weary eyelids droop responsive to a 
law of nature. 

Day had now renounced its sceptre to the hand of dark- 
ness, and the night drew its shadows around our little world 
without, until neither wood or clearing could be distinguished 
in the more remote distance. We drew our chairs to the 
bright and cheerful fire, filled our pipes, and conversed for a 
while on the usual indifferent subjects of local gossip. These 
exhausted, I at last ventured to inquire of my usually silent, 
but intelligent visitor, in reference to the dreaded gorge and 
its accredited mystery. 

The hunter looked up at me with a quick movement, as if 
to observe if my request was a jesting one, or instigated by a 
real interest in what most men of reading and observation 
would at once set down as an idle and absurd tale, hatched in 
the undisciplined imagination of ignorant and superstitious 
woodmen. Then, with the faintest evidence of a smile play- 
ing around his mouth, he remarked : 

“ And so you have heard of the hemlock gorge, a*id what 
is generally believed to be, here among the settlers, its 
ghostly inhabitant? Well, you will doubtless laugh at my 


THE SPECTEE OF THE HEMLOCK GOEGE. 


153 


strange recital, as I would myself if, unknowing the facts, I 
listened to them from the lips of another.” 

Here the hunter took a few vigorous whiffs at his pipe by 
way of finishing its contents, knocked out the ashes, returned 
it to his pouch, and began : 

“ A dozen or so years ago, before the hundreds of Chicago- 
lumbermen came into these parts, deer and bear abounded in; 
great numbers, and this section of the lake shore was consid- 
ered by hunters and trappers as one of the best for their calling 
in all Northern Michigan. There was not a single permanent 
settler for many miles around, and not a ten acre clearing in 
all which is now called Benona Township. 

“I used to come out here then every winter, with a single 
comrade and partner. He was a Canadian-Frenchman named 
LeClerc, and the most cunning hunter and trapper I ever 
met with, and that is saying a great deal in his favor. He 
seemed instinctively to understand the habits, and the lurking 
places of all the animals of the water and the woods, and he 
would follow the trail of other hunters, who would go miles 
without seeing horn, hoof, or hide, and LeClerc would return 
laden with the trophies which had entirely escaped their 
keenest observation. 

“ But the old man was terribly profane, both in his native* 
and acquired language. But for swearing he always seemed, 
to prefer the French, until the supply was exhausted, and 
then he would replenish his impoverished vocabulary by copi- 
ous draughts upon the hardest English expletives. 

“ But he was a truly brave veteran of the woods, and as 
warm-hearted and sympathetic as a woman, in any emer- 
gency that appealed to tenderness. He finally died, his 
broken rifle by his side, knife in hand, and a dead bear’s teeth 
closed around his lacerated jugular. But this is not the 
story you wish to hear to-night. 

K 


154 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


“ I had heard something of the haunted gorge, from the 
lips of old trappers and hunters, who had come down to 
Grand Rapids in the spring to dispose of their winter spoils. 
But as such stories were common around the lodge fires, and 
were always listened to by the younger men with an honest 
belief that the most extravagant exaggeration could not im- 
pair, I listened to them only for the amusement of an idle 
hour. But as one or two men of hardier judgment, more 
truthful, and of less vivid imagination, solemnly assured me 
that they had personally been confronted by the spectre, I 
became interested in the question, and resolved to embrace 
the first opportunity to seek an introduction to the supposed 
apparition. 

“ The season I came out here with old LeClerc, we built 
our lodge within a mile of the haunt of the dreaded spectre, 
and the second morning after our arrival we shouldered our 
rifles, uncoupled our hounds, and started for the gorge. I 
observed that the face of the old man wore a serious and 
troubled look, and that not a single profane expression had 
broken from his lips during the entire morning. I verily 
believe that but for fear of having his established bravery ques- 
tioned, which was his only pride, he would have flatly refused 
to have accompanied me in what must turn out either a silly 
or a frightful adventure. But the old hunter had the nat- 
ural weakness of men of our calling and habits, and as he 
bore the conceded reputation of i fearing neither man or 
devil/ to flinch now from the side of a comrade, in dread of 
a ghost, w T ould furnish a text for ridicule around all the camp- 
fires along the lake shore. 

“As soon as we reached the entrance of the gorge, the 
hounds broke out in full cry, and went in on a run. A 
herd of five deer had not been a half hour ahead of us. Le- 
Clerc at once caught the excitement so natural to the occasion? 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


155 


and with a shout of encouragement to the hounds, sprang 
past me, and with rapid step pushed forward upon the trail. 

“ The first excitement of the chase over, my attention was 
attracted to the strange features of the place we were treading. 
The sides were almost perpendicular, while high above us 
the mighty hemlocks leaned over the abyss, their mingled 
tops forming so close a cover, that not one ray of sunshine 
could break in upon the solemn gloom by which we were en- 
shrouded. Of course it was the fever of imagination, but I 
did fancy that I felt the fanning of invisible wings in the 
motionless air, and a rank, graveyard odor seemed to ooze 
out from the sides of the gorge, and to rise up from the 
mouldering, rotten vegetation into which our feet sank at 
every step. I had heard of the valley and the shadow of 
death, and here seemed the fearful realization of it in the 
wilderness, and upon the earth. 

“ To tell the truth, a fear to which I had heretofore been 
a stranger, began to usurp possession of my faculties. But 
the old man had become so absorbed in the hunt, and in 
listening to the baying of the dogs, that he seemed to have 
entirely forgotten all his previous misgivings, his present 
surroundings of a superstitious nature, and began to let loose 
his restrained profanity with prodigal volubility. 

“He had just delivered himself of a shocking malediction 
against a hidden root, over which he had stumbled, when a 
low, whimpering cry was heard a short distance ahead, and a 
moment thereafter both dogs came bounding toward us, 
shivering in an agony of fear, and crouched down behind Le- 
Clerc, who was about a dozen yards in advance of where I 
stood. The old man, who had been closely observing the 
trail from the time of our first entering, raised his eyes at 
this singular action of his petted and favorite animals, and 


156 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


looked straight ahead in the direction from which they had 
so unexpectedlycome. 

“ I shall never fully free my vision from the scene which 
followed this sudden action of the old hunter. In an instant 
he stood as one petrified. His rifle dropped from his hand 
and rattled against a stone. I could not see his eyes, but I 
knew that some horrible fascination had riveted their gaze. 
I hastened to his side as fast as the little power of motion 
left me would permit. He raised his right arm slowly from 
his side, pointed up the gorge, and sank down upon the 
ground. 

“I looked in the direction indicated. About a hundred 
feet in advance, between two dead hemlock trees, stood a 
figure completely enveloped in a black shroud. It was 
motionless, but erect. The outlines were unmistakably 
human. Strange to say, my terror had in a measure left me 
the moment the object was discerned, and my faculties of 
observation seemed rather sharpened than impaired. I tried 
every mode of reasoning that would assist to the belief that 
what I saw was rather an illusion than a reality. It would 
not do. The dreadful apparition was too palpable, too well- 
defined, too distinct from the nature of all of its surround- 
ings, to be classed with any real substance. Even as I 
looked, it sank slowly into the ground, then as slowly rose 
up to its former proportions ; a shadowy arm protruded 
through the shroud, pointed to a spot on the side of the 
precipice close to the floor of the gorge, the arm slowly 
shrank back beneath its covering, and then the object gradu- 
ally melted away and was gone ! 

“ I looked around upon my companion. He was sitting 
up, and had evidently witnessed all that I had myself seen. 
His face was very pale, but a more subdued expression by 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


157 


far was upon his features than I had ever seen there before. 
At last he said : 

Comrade, we will not now talk about what we have 
just witnessed. Let us return. To-morrow we will come 
here again, and examine the spot to which the spirit pointed. 
Take your hatchet and blaze this tree. Then we shall be 
certain of the place.* 

“ Neither of us had any appetite for sapper that night, and 
the small hours of the morning were upon us ere we ven- 
tured to seek repose in sleep. The dogs lay stretched before 
the fire, but were as wakeful as their masters, whining 
piteously at intervals, as though disturbed by some invisible 
intruder. 

“But the weary hours of the night dragged their slow 
length along, and the wished for day dawned at last. A few 
mouthfulls of cold venison, eaten without appetite, sufficed 
for our breakfast, and the sun was just coming up out of 
the east as we started on our journey to try to investigate the 
ghostly mystery of the previous day. We walked on, slowly 
and in silence, over the intervening mile. The 1 blazed* tree 
was soon found, and then we approached the two old hem- 
locks, between whose dead trunks the vision had been discov- 
ered. 

“ I stepped at once to the spot on the side of the precipice 
to which it had pointed, and commenced the examination. 
Nothing unusual was to be seen, from the first curious glance 
we cast around. We were beginning to look upon the affair 
as a delusion, or some natural phenomenon that had deceived 
our heated senses, and I commenced joking LeClerc about 
our childish fancies. But to be more fully satisfied on this 
point, I turned my face toward the dead hemlocks, to see if 
we had the right range of the spot toward which the spectre 
had pointed. 


158 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


“ And there it stood again, right within ten feet of us, its 
shrouded figure so clearly defined, as to remove all doubt of 
the perfection of our senses ! I touched my comrade upon 
the arm. He looked up, and his eyes followed the direction 
of my own. Even as we stood, in breathless silence, and 
gazed in awe, a shadowy arm gradually protruded from the 
shroud, and pointed to the spot upon which we stood ! 

“ It is strange, but neither of us were in the least shaken 
with fear. A solemn sense of some dread, but unknown duty 
devolving upon us, was the only sensation by which we were 
affected. 

“ In a few moments the spectre sloAvly faded away, as on 
the day previous. Then LeClerc took the muzzle of his rifle 
and parted the low bushes, and matted vines, that had grown 
out of the side of the slope, where it rested on the bottom of 
the gorge. And then the discovery was made. 

“ The mouth of a cave, about twenty inches in diameter, 
right in front of which, and pressing against it, was the body 
of a young hemlock, of about a dozen years growth. A 
quantity of decayed branches, leaves, &c., partially filled the 
mouth of the cavern, and these, with the tree in front, inter- 
fered with our explorations. But we had our hatchets with 
us, and it took but a few minutes to bring the tree to the 
ground. The accumulated rubbish was easily removed, and 
the feet and skull of a ghastly human skeleton were revealed ! 
A pair of pantaloons, and a shirt, still clothed the rest of the 
skeleton in their rotten folds. A hat lay on the bottom of 
the cave. On examining this, we discovered a piece of paper 
inside, which had evidently been torn from the inner lining 
of the hat. On this was written with a pencil the following, 
which we found but little difficulty in deciphering, the cave 
being of sandy formation, and removed from all damp sur- 
roundings. The lines read thus : 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


159 


“ ‘ I know that I am dying, and I feel that an angry God 
is here. In my life I scoffed at His name, and derided His 
promises and His threatenings. In my dying hour He has 
closed his inercy against me. Hope is gone forever, and a 
black eternity opens before me. Should my remains be 
discovered, the prayer of a dying wretch is, that they may be 
removed to the burying grounds of some Christian church. 

“ ‘ January, 1851/ 

“ Upon after inquiry, I learned that in the same month of 
the same year a vessel had been wrecked on the coast near by 
the gorge, and it was supposed that all hands had perished. 
There is little doubt that one of the passengers had reached 
the shore, wandered into the uninhabited wilderness, and 
finally crept into this cave, and perished of cold and ex- 
haustion. 

“ We left the skeleton precisely as we had found it, and 
returned to camp. After supper we discussed the matter be- 
tween us, and agreed upon a plan of action. There was a 
little log Methodist Church at Pentwater, about twelve miles 
distant, and we resolved to start with the remains the next 
day, and comply with the last request of the unhappy stranger. 

“ In the morning we found it impossible to get material to 
make a box, and so we took one of our blankets, went back 
to the cave, carefully removed the skeleton, wrapped it up in 
the blanket, carried it to the beach, deposited it in our log 
canoe, and rowed for Pentwater. 

“It was growing dark when we reached our destination, for 
the lake was up in its wrath, and what little headway we 
could make was amid the greatest dangers. We saw no one 
on our way to the little graveyard, for it was some consider- 
able distance from the half dozen huts that composed the set- 
tlement. With our paddles we soon dug a hole of sufficient 
depth in the sandy soil, deposited the remains, and covered 


160 THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 

them from sight. Then the old man grasped me by the 
hand, and said : 

“ ‘ Comrade, I need not tell you that I have been a very 
wicked man, and of violent deeds and of blaspheming tongue. 
What you and me have recently witnessed, is a warning from 
Heaven to us both. Henceforth and forever I renounce my 
evil ways, so far as grace is given me to resist temptation, 
and I know that prayer is mighty and will prevail. Let us 
pray for the dead/ 

“And we kneeled down upon the new made grave of the 
stranger, and the old man poured forth a fervent supplication, 
with a sincerity of soul that I fear is seldom heard in the 
great churches of your eastern cities. And then we arose and 
departed for our boat, better men than we had ever been 
before. 

“ I never heard a profane word from the lips of LeClerc 
afterward, nor even a momentary ebullition of anger at any 
trivial annoyance. And his changed -deportment had a won- 
derful influence upon the rude men of the wilderness, with 
whom he associated, for they knew there was none of the 
sham of hypocrisy in the rough old French hunter. That is 
a vice that only pays where there is ‘ refined society/ 

“ And now,” said the hunter, after a short pause, and turn- 
ing his clear honest blue eyes full upon my face, “ of course 
you doi/t believe my strange story. I cannot ask you to. I 
would not believe it myself, had it been told me by another. 

“ And yet,” he added, after musing a few moments, “ the 
human mind, in the learned or ignorant, the profane as well 
as the pious, is always moved to either clear or doubtful 
credulity at stories of the supernatural. And how can there 
be belief in that which is impossible f There can be no super- 
structure, material or spiritual, without foundation . There- 
fore I hold that the mere fact that our race, savage, barbaric, 


THE SPECTRE OF THE HEMLOCK GORGE. 


161 


or christianized, all have their superstitions, is proof positive 
of a Divine cause that produces this universal effect. I go 
further and say that all of mental action is from God. That 
man may pervert and misdirect is another question. But 
there can be no superstition without a reality for its basis. 
If the dead do not live again we could not think they do.” 

The hour was now late, and we retired. It was long before 
sleep broke in upon the meditations which the hunter’s story 
had set in action. 

Dear reader, there are more things in Heaven and Earth 
than are dreamed of in your philosophy. 


MY MOTHER. 


’miS but a week ago to-day 
JL My mother passed from earth ; 

I cannot weep, I cannot pray, 

Yet never grief had sadder birth. 

Adown the gloom of weary years, 

My pilgrim memory takes its way ; 

It passes shrines bedewed with tears, 
Forgotten till this judgment day. 

I see a little head at rest — 

A little baby boy in sleep 

Upon a youthful mother’s breast, 

Whose joy is voiceless deep. 

Again the shadows slowly lift, 

From out the gloom of the dead years, 

And where the sunlight throws its drift, 
That boy, a man appears. 

And sin and shame is on his brow, 

A lifeless life of crime and wrong ; 

Forgot, or broken every vow 
He learned in cradle song. 

0 ! mother, to thy hairs of gray 
Thy child brought little else than grief; 

God pity those who thus repay 
The love beyond belief! 

And here, all stripped of passion’s power, 

I kneel beside thy new-made grave, 

And plead His grace — O ! sacred dower ! — 
The grace to bless and save ! 

Send earthward from Thy holy throne 
The balm that saves the soul from pain — 

Bereft, sad, penitent, alone — 

Let child and mother meet again ! 


THE “OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH 
IN FULL DRESS. 


I T had been announced that on the following Sabbath a 
sermon would be preached in our little school-house, and 
so unusual an event created no little stir among the few set- 
tlers of the Ridge. The matrons hunted up the old fashioned 
linen caps that they had brought with them from their old 
homes, and which had been carefully laid away against the 
day of possible need. The young women did their level 
best, you bet, with the scanty material at hand, to add ,to 
their natural attractions. The men looked ruefully at their 
patched solitary suits, of a style belonging to a past rustic 
generation, and meditated, with indecision, as to whether it 
were better to sacrifice the little remaining pride of personal 
appearance, to their desire to see the preacher, and to hear 
the “sarmint.” 

I had requested of the “ Old Settler ” that he would accom- 
pany me on the occasion, and assured him that it would afford 
me great pleasure to attend under his escort. 

“ Dura it, mister,” was his response, “ don’t be a pokin’ 
fun at a feller. Look here, how about goin’ to meetin’ in 
sich trousers ? ” 

As he said this, he turned slowly around, and with his 
finger directed my attention to about a score of patches, of 
as many different colors. 

I had a curiosity to see how the man would deport himself 
at a religious meeting, and to hear his after comments upon 


164 THE “old settler” goes to church. 

the services. And so I informed him that I had a pair of 
tolerably good pantaloons that I would give him, but feared 
they would prove much too short for his style of legs. 

“ That don’t make a mite of difference,” he rejoined, “ ony 
so as they aint patched. I don’t mind a patch or two on the 
seat, or on the knees, for everybody here hez to wear them 
kind. But when a feller’s trousers is all patches, somehow 
he hates to go to a place where most everybody else hez on 
better clothes. Leastwise I do, and I’ll be durned ef I kin 
git over it. I know poor folks oughtn’t be proud, but 
human nater will go agin what it oughtn’t to.” 

Noticing that his shirt hung in rags, and having some un- 
bleached muslin in the house, I proffered him sufficient for 
that article, provided he thought his wife could manage to 
make it up for him in time for the meeting. 

To my surprise the man manifested genuine feeling at this 
proposition, and the tears came to his eyes, as in a subdued 
voice he exclaimed : 

“ Durn it, mister, you’m a leetle too good to such a mean 
cuss as I am. I know’d them taters wuz froze when I sold 
’em to you, and ever since then I’ve kinder tried to git the 
best of you, for I sort of felt that you couldn’t help but be- 
lieve that I wuz an ornary rascal. But we hadn’t a pound 
of meat, nor of flour — only a quart or two of ingin — in the 
cabin, and not a cent to buy enny with. That boss in the 
lumber camp run away with all our winter airnin’s, and what 
could a poor feller like me do ? That’s why the devil put it 
into my head to sell you them taters, which they got froze 
because the wind blowed the snow off of the place where they 
wuz buried. And when a man hez done a mean thing, and 
knows it, he tries to bully it out, as though he wuz right, and 
tries to make himself believe it, though its the durnd’est hard- 
est job ever a feller undertook. And now that I hev owned 


165 


THE “OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH. 

lip to that blasted tater business, I feel better, and more like 
a man, and ef there wuz ony enny preachin’ goin’ on right 
here, durn’d ef I don’t b’lieve that I should git right down 
on my knees, and pray of the good Lord to fergiye me of 
my sins.” 

Somewhat astounded at this blunt and unexpected confes- 
sion, I looked searchingly into the man’s face; but its 
expression confirmed all that he had said. The hard, rigid 
lines, the bold, defiant glance, in which courage was so 
mingled with cunning, had all been softened down in a mo- 
ment to a look of penitence and remorse. The better nature 
of this buffeted and hardened being had obtained a momen- 
tary mastery, and the image of God was vindicated in this 
seemingly most reckless and abandoned of His creatures. 
He hung his head, and a few big tears rolled down his 
bronzed and weather-beaten cheeks. Was this a passing 
emotion, a transient gleam of the purity of our race before 
sin entered Eden, and defiled the shrine of the Divinity with 
which the Creator had endowed the creature ? Or was it the 
permanent lifting up of the lost and degraded to his original 
statue before the Master, which Christ promised to all who 
would confess their sins and put their burdens upon him ? 

I found myself unable to respond to what this uncouth 
being had so earnestly uttered, so strange had his altered 
manner affected and confounded me. I entered the house, 
obtained the pantaloons, an old vest, and a few yards of 
muslin, returned and handed the articles to him. He 
received them in an humble and thankful manner, and with- 
out saying a word, walked away slowly, with bowed head, in 
the direction of his cabin. 

How many wretches there are, who are nearer the King- 
dom than the judgment of even good men is willing to 
admit ! O ! ye of little faith ! 


166 THE “old settler” goes to church. 

About nine o’clock on the next Sabbath morning, a man 
was seen coming toward our cabin, whose appearance at first 
defied all my efforts at recognition, and alarmed the female 
portion of the household. But when he reached the house, 
and uttered his “ good mornin’, mister,” the “ Old Settler” 
stood revealed before us. It was just all we could do to 
restrain our laughter, and little Alice ran indoors, and then 
fairly screamed with mirth. The man had on his gift panta- 
loons, which were fully eight inches too short for him, and 
fitted so tightly to his huge limbs, that it seemed as if his 
legs had been melted and run therein. There was a space of 
about four inches between the top of his pantaloons and vest. 
On his right foot he had a large cavalry boot, and on the 
other a low shoe, the heel of which showed a determination 
to run outward and turn upward. 

But that new shirt ! O, for the pen of a Dr. McCosh ! 
As it is, my description must be tame. It swelled out at the 
bosom like a balloon, and a roll, resembling a huge yellowish 
life preserver, bulged out from the neutral ground between 
said vest and said pantaloons. The collar, heavily creased, 
unstarched, hid nearly the entire of his head, while the points 
came around in dangerous proximity to his eyes. The 
thought suggested itself that he must have put that shirt on 
wrong end up ! And all this bodily grotesqueness of 
apparel was crowned with the beautiful new stovepipe hat he 
had captured from me, on the occasion before described in 
these pages ! 

The “ Old Settler” scanned each face before him quickly, 
and saw the evidence of restrained mirth. His subdued 
expression of the day before had lost much of its humility, 
still his old assurance was not there. If his heart was as 
changed as his face, he had become a comparatively Christian 
man. Our furtive scrutiny of his dress abashed him but for 


167 


THE “OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH. 

a moment, and then with one eye partly closed/and a humor- 
ous twinkle playing around the other, he asked : 

* “ Mister, how do I look ?” 

“ Like an emperor,” I responded. “ When we first saw 
you coming over the hill, we all thought it must be the min- 
ister.” 

“Well,” he rejoined, in a good natured tone, “I don’t 
blame you folks for makin’ a little fun of the old man. I 
ruther guess I do look purty durn’d curious. But it tuk me 
and the old woman a good hour to git this riggin’ on, enny- 
thing like ship shape. And then she laid right down on 
the floor and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, as ef she 
would die, which I almost hoped she would, and between 
laughs she axed me not to go a cavortin’ around among the 
gals, and thus break the heart of so good a wife as she had 
been unto me for nigh upon forty years past. But, mister, I 
done the best I could, which the things didn’t fit me nohow, 
and ef you would ruther not go with me to the meetin’, 
lookin’ as I do, jist say so, and I will go by myself, and no 
hard thoughts agin you.” 

I hastily assured the “ Old Settler ” that the thought at 
which he hinted had no place in my mind, and invited him 
into the cabin. As soon as we were seated, with an effort 
that threatened disaster to his new pantaloons, he crossed his 
cavalry leg over the other, and said : 

“Mister, this ere boot is all the plunder that I brought 
back with me out of the war, when I fout under Old Shar- 
man. I was on picket the day arter the beautiful scrimmage 
at Missionary Ridge, when I seed a crow sailin’ round and 
round over a little bunch of bushes, about thirty rod from 
where I stood watch in’ some rebel horsemen, away over on 
the ridge of a hill. Well, I went over to them bushes, 
which it wuz agin orders, but I w r anted to see what that crow 


168 the “old settler’’ goes to church. 

meant. And there, sure enough, laid a rebel officer, flat on 
his face, dead. There was no sword in his scabbard, and no- 
money in his pockets, which I sarched for the sake of his* 
family. But he hed on a good pair of new boots, and I wuz 
about barefoot. And so I tuk hold of one of ’em, and after 
tuggin’ mighty hard for five minutes, which the leg was 
swelled, I managed to git that boot off. Then I tackled the 
other, but I couldn’t budge it a mite. I seed that a cannon 
ball had knocked the knee of this leg all to flinders, and so 
the poor feller, which he was a big, good looking chap, had 
managed to crawl into the bushes and die. Well, I yanked 
away at that totlier boot, for I guess fifteen minutes, without 
gainin’ a mite on it. At last, fur I expected the Relief 
every minute, I gin it an almighty jerk, and the hull thing 
cum off at the knee, sendin’ me head foremost onto the ground ! 

“ Well, mister, I hed no corkscrew, you know, and so I hed 
to leave that boot, which was a shame. I daren’t take it 
into camp with the leg in it, for the boys would hev give me 
some durn’d nickname about it, which I never would hear 
the last of. 

“ But it wuz jist my luck, fur everything has seemed to go 
agin me, from the time I wuz a little boy. But I held on to 
tother boot, all through Tenesee, Georgee, North Carliny, 
clear to Pottymax Court House, and at last brought it home 
with me. I hev never wore it afore to-day, only wunst 
when I went to ’lection to wote fur Old Greeley. Folks sed 
he ony wore one boot, and that’s the why I woted fur him.” 

The time to move for the meeting had now arrived, and we 
started, leaving the rest of the family, who were decidedly 
averse to close companionship with the “ Old Settler ” on this 
occasion, to follow at a respectful distance. Arrived at the 
school-house, we found about forty people assembled, anxious 
for the appearance of the preacher. Among them were a 


169 


THE “OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH. 

number of strangers from the mills, a much better paid and 
better clothed class than any of the permanent settlers. The 
moment my companion entered and took his seat, a general gig- 
gle went around the assembly. The mill men were particu- 
larly demonstrative, and scanned my companion's dress with 
broad grins, and insulting gestures of supercilious superiority. 
The old man noticed this at once, and his face, determined at 
all times in its expression, darkened with anger. At last he 
leaned over to me and whispered : 

“ Neighbor, as soon as the sarvice is over, I'm a goin' to 
shake up two or three of them durn'd Yankee mill fellers 
to see ef there is enny manners in 'em. I mean to shake 'em 
good — so they will stay shook ontil the next preacher comes 
along.” 

He then raised his huge fist, and brought it down three 
times, with a heavy “ thug” upon his knee, looking hard at 
the offenders all the while. The insulting demonstrations 
instantly ceased. All the country round knew that “ Pete 
Higgins " was a dangerous man to be lightly trifled with ; 
for in strength, activity, and courage, he had no equal in the 
entire county, and he never calculated the odds, when fully 
aroused by insult or injustice. 

It was fifteen minutes past the time when the preacher 
arrived. As he entered and stepped upon the low platform, 
the whole audience was at once hushed into silence — the 
silence of awe. There appeared before them a man over six 
feet in stature, erect, thin in features, long, white hair that 
fell down upon his shoulders, and a port and bearing such as 
is ascribed to one born to command. His large, eager, black 
eyes gleanaed with a strange light that seemed not of earth, 
and appeared to emit a holy, confident defiance against an 
ungodly world in arms. If there ever was a man fearless 
of martyrdom, that apostle of faith was now before us. 

L 


170 


THE “OJLD SETTLER ” GOES TO CHURCH. 

“ Friends,” he commenced, in a low, sweet tone, of almost 
womanly tenderness, “ I am seventy years old this day, and 
find that at last I have miscalculated my strength. I walked 
from Pentwater (twelve miles distant) this morning, to meet 
you here, and became wearied by the way. The spirit was 
willing but the flesh was weak. God tries his servants, and 
his enemies, alike by the same physical laws. My limbs are 
not as lithe as in the years that are past. But the strength 
that is left to me shall be cheerfully spent in His service — 
glory to His great name ! Let us pray.” 

The preacher, with both arms extended, stood erect, but 
every head in his presence was bowed as by a common im- 
pulse. And then, in a low, solemn voice, he prayed : 

“ God of all space; God of the wilderness; God of the 
waste places, where no man is ; God of the city full, where 
sin flaunts its disregard of Thee even in Thy temples, soften 
my heart, and the hearts of these Thy neglected children , that 
they may be opened to the admission of Thy spirit, and Thy 
grace abound therein, even as the waters fill the limits of the 
great deep. Let not the rod of Moses be weakened in the 
centuries of sin, and shame, and crime ; for there are hearts 
now, even here, whose waters are sealed as with adamant, and 
Thy power alone can cause them to flow forth to vivify for 
eternity the graces and the glories of redeemed mortality. 
God of all, Saviour of those who will, Sanctifier of the 
blessed who die in the Lord, show Thy power through Thy 
servant this day, unto this people, and the glory shall be 
unto the Giver of every good and perfect gift — Amen !” 

The preacher was not heard in his prayer for “ much 
speaking,” but that moment there were live coals upon rude 
altars, that had perhaps never felt the glow of a religious 
emotion before. Faces, unwonted in solemnity, revealed the 
thoughts that had startled the soul within. The people had 


THE “OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH. 171 

listened to a prayer, instead of an affectation. God is only 
with the word when the utterer is with God. 

Then the old apostle took from his pocket a well worn 
book, and read out a hymn. Finding that none of his 
audience could assist in that comforting part of the service, 
he sang the selection alone, in so earnest and touching a man- 
ner, that even those who neither comprehended its words or 
sentiments, were affected by an inspiration of the emotions 
into a sort of religious appreciation that was depicted plainly 
in their faces. For myself, I had never heard the hymn 
before, but well do I now remember one recurring line : 

“ J esus of Nazareth passeth by.” 

But I have listened to it since, and rendered in such low, 
soft, sweet melody, as to thrill my soul almost into harmony 
with the spirits of just men made perfect. 

Then the preacher announced his text : “ The poor have the 
gospel preached unto them.” 

I have heard very many pulpit discourses in my day, from 
the wordy lips of the religious demagogues of the Beecher 
school, who in the motto of the shopkeeper, “ study to please,” 
to the zealous fanatic who rants shockingly about sublime 
truths which his shallow brain is incapable of comprehend- 
ing, and who approaches God more as a familiar than as a 
worshipper. But never until this day had I heard a preacher 
who came so near the ideal standard of my conception of 
what a dispenser of the Word should strive to attain to. 
There was none of those painfully disgusting exhibitions of 
vanity — of self — peeping out of studied oratorical sentences, 
now so common with the clergy of our blinded and self-de- 
ceived congregations. As friend talks to friend, earnest for 
his welfare, did this man, his eyes fixed first upon one listener, 


172 the “old settler” goes to church. 

and then another, speak of the Redeemer of the race, his 
sinless sufferings for the sins of others, ending in the most 
horrible of deaths. He told his hearers how Christ, leaving 
the unjust of wealth, and the powerful of oppression, to their 
own ways, went among the lowly and the despised, bound up 
the broken hearted, and lifted the soul of the beggar up to 
the inheritance of an eternity ever glorious in immortality, 
that all the potentates of earth could neither give nor take 
away. Standing there, his tall form dilating in his fervent 
passion, his large eyes emitting magnetic flashes that held in 
the bonds of wonder, fear, and amazement, the most stupid 
listener, he seemed the risen personification of the great 
Apostle of the Gentiles. Toward the close, unwearied in 
effort, and unflagging in utterance, he stepped from the plat- 
form, walked down among the people, raised the little child- 
ren in his arms and kissed them, laid his hands upon the 
heads of hardened, stalwart men and blessed them, while his 
exhortations, so full of touching pathos for the welfare of 
others, shed a holy influence upon all present, and sobs and 
groans from hearts that had never uttered them before, at- 
tested a power greater than that of man. 

At the close of the meeting, which lasted nearly two hours, 
the strange preacher, of whom no man present knew ought, 
prepared to depart. He refused all invitations to dinner, and 
to remain over night, stating that he stood in need of neither 
food nor shelter then, and that the Lord would provide 
against the hour of his necessity. With a parting blessing, 
he again walked forth into the wilderness, another John the 
Baptist, upon his mission. 

I had become so wholly absorbed in the wonderful utter- 
ances of the strange preacher, that I had forgotten to observe 
the effect upon the “ Old Settler ” up to this time. When I 
at last looked for him, I discerned that he had left the room, 


173 


THE a OLD SETTLER” GOES TO CHURCH. 

and was standing some distance from the door, his back to- 
wards us, rubbing an old, ragged fragment of a handkerchief, 
in a hasty and impatient manner, over his eyes and face. He 
had evidently been weeping, and was trying to obliterate this 
evidence of his weakness. 

Just then the mill men started in a body on their way 
home. The “ Old Settler ” turned around upon them, and 
confronting the leader, said : 

“ Mister, you had ought’er hev thanked thet preacher, afore 
he went away. He hez saved you from one of the durnd’est 
lickings ever a Yankee got in these parts.” 

The old man maintained his half defiant attitude for a few 
moments, as though anxious that his adversary would make 
some demonstration that would release him from the moral 
resolution he had formed, under the effect of the preaching, 
to forgive the previous insults. But to our surprise the 
“ yankee,” who was evidently a sensible man, and of kindly 
feelings, asked pardon for his thoughtless offence, and declared 
that he was sorry for it. 

“ Durn my pictur ! durn everybody ! ” exclaimed the “ Old 
Settler,” as he wheeled around out of the path, his eyes again 
flushed with tears, “ ef I aint a gittin’ to be a great blubberin' 
baby, who is ashamed of hisself!” 

And thus speaking, he joined me and we started home- 
ward. We had walked some little distance in silence, when 
my companion, ridding himself of a deep sigh, said : 

“ Mister, I aint as big a fool as you think I am. This hat 
is yourn. I know’d you didn’t intend to give it to me about 
them bugs. But I thought it a good chance to git the better 
of you agin, and so I tuk it. It’s jist as the preacher says. 
When a man does one mean thing, the devil is always on 
hand to coax him to foller it up. 

“And,” he continued, after a brief pause, and another 


174 THE “OLD SETTLER ” GOES TO CHURCH. 

sigh, “ I wish I was dead, ony I aint fit. I owe you ten 
dollars fur them taters, which was froze, and five more dol- 
lars, borrered money. Now Fve got a heffer, which she will 
come in next spring. She aint got hardly enny flesh onto 
her bones, but she’s wuth all of fifteen dollars. She’s yourn.” 

I assured my companion that nothing could induce me to 
accept his proposition, and that I could afford to lose all he 
owed me, without the least inconvenience. At any rate he 
must not think of paying me until he was abundantly able. 

“ I know what you mean,” said the “ Old Settler,” you 
want me to feel easy like, ez if I hedn’t done ennything 
much wrong. Thet won’t do. The preecher told me what 
God expects a man to do what has cheated his neighbor. He 
sed we must pay back agin four fold. Thet I can’t do. 
Well, then, what I kin do, comes next. Mister, don’t let 
your good natur’ make you talk what ain’t right. A bad 
feller kin find excuses enough fur his wickedness, without 
hevin’ tolerably good folks, who know better, tryin’ to help 
him cheat them and hisself too.” 

I felt sorely rebuked at this unexpected logic, from this 
awakened man — awakened to new ideas of his responsibility 
to Deity — and before I could collect my thoughts for a 
response, he struck a by-path that led to his cabin, and soon 
disappeared in the woods. 

I arose early the next morning, and on opening the door 
of my cabin, there, upon the head of a barrel, was my new 
hat ! After breakfast I went down to the barn, and there, 
lying by the side of my own two beautiful calves, “ Hagar ” 
and “ Daisy,” was the poor, thin heifer of the “ Old Settler !” 

In the night he had come and made all the restitution in 
his power ! How many of the “ converted” sinners of our 
city churches have ever done the same ? 


175 


THE “ OLD SETTLER ” GOES TO CHURCH. 

I intend to keep that animal, pet and feed her well, and 
when she “ conies in,” next spring, the wife of the “Old 
Settler” shall have her as a present, if it is in my power to* 
effect such purpose. The result will be made known in my 
next volume. 


TO MY LITTLE SPARROW. 


P OOK little birdie, with feathers so brown, 

How do you feel when the snow comes down, 
With its wintry mantle all over the town? 

“Chip!” “chip!” 

And the wind whistles wild round every corner, 

And you so unlike little Jack Horner, 

Who had a snug place in the chimney corner? 
“Chip!” “chip!” 

Dear little bird, to my window sill come, 

For while my cupboard has in it a crumb, 

I will fast myself, but you shall have some. 

“Chip!” “chip!” 

From the dark clouds above the white drift is tossed, 
And thy poor little body is pinched with the frost, 
Yet the hope that God gave thee can never be lost! 
“Chip!” “chip!,” 

The days are now near when thy little brown wing 
Will be spread, mid the beauty and odor of Spring, 
And thy heart its new birth of enjoyment will sing, 
“Chip!” “chip!” 

Teach me, little bird, to be strong against fate, 

To see through the storms of my earthly estate, 

The sunshine that gleams through the Heavenly gate 
“Chip!” “chip!” 


\ 


MY ANGEL 


T O THEE, 0, God ! I lift my rescued soul, . 
In holiest praise, 

To bless Thee for the saving hope vouchsafed 
My later days. 

When all was but as darkest frowning night, — 
No kindling beam 

Threw o’er the weary waste of a long life,, 

One cheering gleam. 

Swift to the gulf of my unblest despair 
An angel came, 

And bending o’er the fearful, dark abyss, 
Whispered my name ! 

Then in my leprous heart a glory shone 
At Thy command, 

And through the darkness of my fate I saw. 

My angel’s hand ! 

Safe to the Eock she lifted up my feet 
From sensual mire, 

And purified my former evil thoughts 
From base desire! 

Immortal Spirit! bless this angel bright, 

So dear to me, 

Who lifted from my soul eternal night. 

And bade me see! 


TO THE READER. 


M Y DEAR FRIEND You, individually. My first 
effort in the book line is before you, (or rather behind 
you now) — either for condemnation, approval, or a mixed 
sentiment of both feelings. It is no hypocritical, self-depre- 
cating utterance, which holds hidden vanity, when I assure 
you that I am not proud of the performance. That the 
work was not undertaken from high moral considerations, or 
a desire to add to the instructive productions of the day, or 
to exalt the tone of public literature, is evident from the 
careless, hap-hazard, contradictory tone that permeates most 
of the enclosed pages. My object was to make a little money, 
not from a mercenary consideration, but because misfortune 
created necessity. I could have made more money, and made 
it easier, by editing a Grant newspaper ; but then , what does 
it projit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his oivn 
soul! Your author — thanks to the good Lord who enabled 
him, in all his life of recklessness, to retain a fair reputation 
for at least personal honesty — is neither a Congressional 
Credit Mobilier villain, or a low back pay grabber. In 
other words, he is not an “ Honorable,” who professed extra 
purity for the opportunity of manifesting extra putridity. 
As this is about the only trait of character I have to boast of, 
you will pardon me for keeping it rather ostentatiously to 
the front. 

From such a character, therefore, you could expect little 
else than common-place, either in morals pious, or morals 
pecuniary. 


TO THE READER. 


179 


That I have not, in these pages, outraged a religious sen- 
timent, or offended reasonable delicacy, is all that any one, 
who knew me by my past life, had a right to expect. And 
in what I have within written, this negative virtue is all of 
which I am congratulatory proud. To conquer a lifelong 
habit of thought and expression, is a victory of hopeful im- 
port, under the proverb that it is “ hard to teach old dogs 
new tricks ! ” 

Compact the time in which this book was written, and the 
sum total will not reach ten days. Neither plan nor plot 
was studied or contemplated, and all herein contained flowed 
from a pen that was unaware of its design, and pursued its 
course as unpremeditated thought pushed it upon its journey. 
A disjointed medley, and an unsatisfactory whole, is the ver- 
dict of the writer’s own judgment. If the reader rises from 
the perusal with a more generous estimate, then I am amply 
paid for my efforts in such reader’s behalf — your own little 
dollar , now snugly in my pocket , being attached to the moral 
consideration. Without that addenda, it is possible that my 
estimate of your appreciation might lack the heartiness which 
recognizes the “ cheerful giver.” Personification of unselfish- 
ness as your author is, he has the modified weakness of his 
tribe for the root that is said to foundation all evil. The 
man who vaunts his disregard of “ filthy lucre,” be he priest 
or layman, the same is a liar of the grandest magnitude, and 
the truth is not in him. As this blow hits all around, the 
established impartiality of my character is not injuriously 
affected by this parting swing of the cudgel. 

And now, dear reader, man or woman, we part right here 
for the present. If this little book of mine, neither harmful 
or useful, which I sent unto you with so much doubt of its 
reception, meets with a favor beyond my own estimate of its 
merits, then will you have conferred upon me a delight hardly 


180 


TO THE PUBLIC. 


hoped for, and in consequence so much the more gratefully 
received and cherished. And the immediate aggressive 
result will be (for unexpected success makes one presump- 
• tuous,) the taxing of this poor brain of mine for another 
volume of an entirely different texture from the unfledged 
bantling you are now closing from perusal. And so, with an 
honest, heartfelt blessing upon you and yours, now, and in 
the unexplored hereafter, receive my affectionate " good bye ! ” 















































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